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ii 





The Jew In English Fiction 



RABBI DAVID PHIUPSON. D.D. 

Author of 

"Old European Jewries" and "The Reform 

Movement m Judaism" 




New Edition, Revised and Enlarged 



CINCINNATI 

THE ROBERT CLARKE COMPANY 

1911 






OOPTRIGHT BY 

ROBERT CLARKE & CO. 



Copyright by 
THE ROBERT CLARKE CO. 

1902. 

Copyright by 

THE ROBERT CLARKE CO. 

1911. 



] 

N 



DEDICATED 



TO THE 

m:eiviory 

OF 

MY FIKST AND MOST LOVING TEACHER, 



S^jj ^0thtv. 



PEEFACE TO THE LAST 
IMPKESSION. 



The continued interest in the subject treated in 
this Yolume makes another impression of the book 
necessary. During the past decade writers by the 
score have produced so called ghetto tales of more 
or less value. The general character of the ghetto 
tale was discussed in the new chapter of the revised 
edition of this book. The thoughts there expressed 
apply to the ghetto tales in question as well as to the 
particular books that form the subject matter of the 
chapter. 

In the general field of English fiction no book 
with a Jew as a leading character which bids fair to 
be numbered among the classics of English litera- 
ture has appeared lately to my knowledge. In a 
number of recent minor novels, if they may be so 
termed, wherein Jewish characters are portrayed, 
there is apparent the inclination on the part of the 
authors to present the Jew in a favorable light as if 
to make amends for the tendency of a former day 
in the contrary direction. As notable examples of 
this trend, the novels, " PETER," by F. Hopkin- 



PREFACE TO THE LAST IMPBESSION. 

son Smith, and ''JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT," 
by Thomas Nelson Page, may be instanced. In as 
far as this indicates a growing recognition of the 
fact that, other things being equal, the Jew is to be 
judged by the same standards as his neighbors of 
other faiths, it is a welcome sign indeed. The Jew 
asks for justice, nothing more nor less, whether it be 
in fiction or in fact. 

DAVID PHILIPSON. 

CiNCiiq-NATi, March, 1911. 



CONTENTS. 



I. Introductoey 5 

II. Marlowe's "Jew of Malta" 19 

m. Shakespeare's " Merchant of Venice " 34 

IV. Cumberland's "The Jew" 54 

V. Scott's "Iyanhoe" 70 

VI. Dickens's " Oliver Twist" and " Our Mutual 

Friend " .t.. 88 

VII. Disraeli's " Coningsby and Tancred" 107 

VIII, George Eliot's " Daniel Derond a," 1 126 

" , II 139 

IX. Zangwill's " Children of the Ghetto" and 

Others 161 



THE JEW L^ ENGLISH FICTION. 



I. mTKODUCTORY. 



As portrayed in English, fiction from tlie time 
of Elizabeth to our day, the Jew is almost Pro- 
tean in his character, if we may judge from the 
various guises he has been made to assume, run- 
ning the whole length from the villainy of Ba- 
rabbas to the ideal nobleness of Mordecai. So 
remarkable a phenomenon is well worthy of in- 
vestigation. The theme is of sufficient impor- 
tance to demand earnest, careful, and unpreju- 
diced consideration. The influence of these 
productions in shaping the popular conception 
of the Jew can not be overestimated, since the 
fascinating form wherein the matter is presented 
is particularly effective in leaving a deep and 
lasting impression on the mind of the reader. 

Where philosophy, with its investigations into 
the cause, aim, and effect of existence, with its 
far-reaching inquiries and conclusions, attracts 
but the few eager and restless minds who would 
delve into the very mystery of things; where 
theology, the philosophy of the highest, requires 
a depth and breadth of comprehension far above 
the ordinary; where positive science is an ex- 

(5) 



6 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

acting mistress, demanding tliat exclusive de- 
votion whicli only some choice spirits can or are 
willing to give; where historical investigation 
expects that search into past doings, customs, 
and thoughts, which can be satisfactorily ac- 
complished only with the greatest labor and 
skill; where thus the pursuit of truth in any 
branch demands the discipleship of a lifetime 
and must be content with the least results, the 
many, impatient to be amused, nor desirous of 
exerting the mind overmuch, have found in the 
novel, " the modern epic," as Fielding terms it, 
and in the drama, the novel presented to the eye, 
their chief mental excitement and amusement. 
Where one will find delight in any of the 
heavier products of thought, a thousand will 
eagerly quaff of the waters which flow from the 
fountain-head of fiction. 

The ordinary reader is carried along, adopts 
the conclusions offered, has his opinions shaped 
and modeled by the writer of fiction. How 
many are there whose whole knowledge of his- 
tory, for example, has been derived from this 
source. There are historical^ scientific, philo- 
sophical, theological, and political novels, and 
great is the influence they exert. They are 
mighty factors in modern culture and modern 
life. Their power is great for good or for evil, 
as their producers will. Of many minds they 
are the only pabulum. It is not my object to 
decry the trash which passes to-day under the 



I. INTRODUCTORY. 7 

name of fiction, nor yet to extol the many pro- 
ductions of true genius which, presenting the 
phases of the development of human life in this 
attractive form, have been among the bene- 
factions of mankind, for is there scarcely one 
who has not been held as by a charm in the 
power of" the Wizard of the N'orth," or has not 
laughed and wept and pitied and grown indig- 
nant with Dickens, or has not marveled at the 
biting scorn and sarcasm, and been startled at 
the deep insight into human nature of Thacke- 
ray, or has not stood amazed at the minute in- 
vestigation of the broad, deep, philosophical 
mind of the greatest of the female novelists, 
the representative par excellence of psychological 
analysis in fiction, or has not thought and 
pondered and studied, and pondered again o'er 
the lines of the myriad-minded dramatist, En- 
gland's first genius, and of the many lesser 
lights that revolve about this sun. 

To these the greatest license is given ; they 
touch upon any and every subject, nothing hu- 
man is foreign to them ; none can bound the do- 
main they may enter ; the world is their field ; 
all sorts and conditions of men offer material for 
treatment. Still there are but two evident in- 
stances that fiction, by ofiering a misrepresen- 
tation, has inflicted on innocent victims the 
greatest harm. Passion and prejudice readily 
communicate themselves from the page to the 
reader. Then ignorance, too, has impressed its 



8 THE JEW IN ENGLISH MICTION. 

seal on many a work whose influence all argu- 
ment and all proof have in vain attempted to 
counteract. And that the Jew has suffered in this 
respect can not be denied. He has been a favor- 
ite character in fiction, treated with all the 
prejudice and ill-feeling which characterized the 
sentiments of the multitude, until the appear- 
ance of Lessing's "Die Juden" and "Kathan 
der Weise." How he suffered from the evil ef- 
fects which these works of the imagination 
produced may be gathered from the following 
fact : whenever in the eighteenth century Shy- 
lock was performed, the passions of the multi- 
tude were excited to such a pitch that it was 
found necessary to produce, immediately there- 
after, " IsTathan the Wise," that this might act as 
an antidote towards quieting the aroused pas- 
sions which might have culminated in excesses 
involving great danger to the unfortunate Jews. 
Two questions present themselves for solution 
in this introduction : First. "Was and is it le- 
gitimate to introduce the Jew into works of 
fiction? And, secondly, if so, to what extent 
can this be carried ? Before answering the first 
question a few remarks will be necessary. Fic- 
tion is a compound of truth and imagination ; 
its lasting power lies in the correct blending of 
these two factors. Exaggeration makes it bi- 
zarre and grotesque. Discerning minds will 
readily discover its weakness and its strength, 
and, according to the predominance of either, 



I. INTRODUCTORY. 9 

it will stand among tlie imperisliable works of 
genius or disappear among the fleeting pro- 
ductions of the moment, ^ow, the truths 
which it lies within the province of the writer 
of fiction to touch, belong either to the inner 
world of human thought and emotion, the elab- 
oration and development of which, in character, 
forms what we may term the analytical, psycho- 
logical novel, or, if the novelist or the dramatist 
wishes to treat of external life — that is of real 
life, and desires to present his tale as containing 
elements thereof — he will portray probably such 
characters and scenes as possess something 
striking and different from that to which 
his readers are accustomed, and which can give 
a tangible hold to imaginative descriptions and 
events. This is what gives Scott his great and 
undying power; his Scotch descriptions and 
scenes came as a revelation to the reading world. 
They contain the element of truth and are drawn 
by a master hand. That is why Auerbach's 
Dorfgeschichten met with so generous a recep- 
tion, because they dealt with scenes that had 
peculiarities sufficient to give them separate 
treatment. 

Therefore, too, the modern Russian, Swedish, 
and !N'orwegian works and tales attract so many 
intelligent readers, because competent minds 
have grasped upon that which is peculiar, and 
blending this truth with their imagination's 
fancies, produce these works, if not of genius, 



10 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

at least of great worth in enabling us to under- 
stand the lives and incidents they portray. 

Does Jewish life present these peculiar fea- 
tures, or any peculiar features which make it 
proper material for the novelist, so that the Jew, 
being introduced into the work of fiction, may 
be a truthful picture, and not a caricature? This 
question we ask regarding Jewish life, as not 
included in the Jewish religion ; this point will 
be touched further on. Here, in the portrayal 
of Jewish life, it is that we must distinguish 
between past and present. We will not for a 
moment deny that in the past, and in those in- 
stances of the present which strictly follow the 
traditional lines set by the past — in the so-called 
ghettos or Jewries of the world, voluntary or 
enforced — the Jew, as a man, apart from the Jew 
in religion, was and is a legitimate character to 
be introduced into fiction. His strict exclusive- 
ness, his many peculiar habits, his (to the com- 
munity) inexplicable customs, marked him ofi*, 
as belonging to a nationality with peculiarities 
all its own. As, inclosed within the Ghetto he 
was cut off from all communication, except such 
as occasional business transactions required, so 
was he seemingly devoid of all sympathy with 
his surroundings. He had a national ideal; 
he regarded his present residence merely as a 
resting place in exile from the Holy Land. In 
many instances, he wore a costume by which he 
was distinguished. In short, his appearance, 



I. INTRODUCTORY. ii 

habits, customs, desires, inclinations, longings, 
hopes, were different from those of his neigh- 
bors. All things conspired to keep him thus ; 
he was oppressed, jeered at — the butt of ridicule 
and cruelty. A character so strange, so readily 
distinguishable, with manners and habits so 
marked, became, as may be expected, popular 
with writers and authors ; especially as by ex- 
aggeration and falsification they could delight 
and please their hearers and readers. Had the 
writers of these mediaeval and later tales kept 
within the bounds of truth and reason, none 
could object to their introducing the Jew into 
their works. There are tales of this very Jewish 
life, portraying the peculiarities and strange- 
nesses of the Ghetto-existence, giving pictures 
of every phase and every custom of this life, 
which are truly delightful and instructive read- 
ing. They were inspired, however, by friend- 
ship, or, at least, by impartiality, instead of by 
ignorance, hatred, and malice. The ghetto 
stories, sketches and tales of Kompert, Franzes, 
Sacher-Masoch, Bernstein, and Kohn, as tale8 
of the past, although containing so much that 
is strange and idiosyncratic, we feel to be per- 
fectly proper, although they are often concerned 
with non-religious doings; and why? Because 
they portray what was once a true state of 
a"Tairs. Even should they contain passages un- 
favorable to the Jews, such as some chapters of 
Auerbach's Spinoza, which tell of bigotry and 



12 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

intolerance, yet, knowing them to be true, none 
can object; none who would have the virtues 
appear would attempt to veil tbe failings and 
the errors. 

This was ; it belongs to history ; and the fic- 
tion that takes it as its theme is in reality 
historical fiction. Now, however, when the Jew 
has laid off all these peculiar customs ; when he 
has stepped out of the Ghetto into the free light 
and air; when he has dropped his traditional 
distinguishing marks; when he in all has be- 
come like his neighbor — thinking like thoughts, 
indulging the same ideals, no longer a stranger 
in a strange land, nor looking upon his habita- 
tion as temporary, but filled with patriotic feel- 
ing for the welfare of whatever country he may 
inhabit; when, in all but religion, he is like 
unto all — every representation of the modern 
Jew, except in the religious light, in novel or in 
drama, in play or in tale, is a mark of gross ig- 
norance, and, through ignorance, of gross evil 
and injustice. The prejudices of an early day 
have not yet died out, and this, coupled with 
the dense ignorance characterizing otherwise 
cultured people regarding Jews and Judaism, 
give these latter-day productions a truly perni- 
cious power. From them many obtain their only 
knowledge of the Jews. The old thought of 
. peculiarity and isolation is revived, if it ever had 
disappeared. Many who derive their knowledge 
from this literature never come into contact 



I. INTRODUCTORY. 13 

witli the misrepresented character ; and if they 
should, and would find him or her different 
from the presentation, they would not regard 
the portrayal incorrect, but only look upon 
their new acquaintance as a vara avis — a dif- 
ferent somebody from the usual class ; for had 
they not been informed by their author that the 
Jews speak differently, that they act differently, 
than their Christian neighbors ? 

All such works written and published add but 
another layer to the dividing line already exist- 
ing. They are unjust to the Jew ; they are but 
new antagonistic elements with which he is 
forced to combat. Even if written without pre- 
judicial intent, they contain the insidious seed 
which sinks deeply and produces poisonous and 
noxious weeds. An author has a superficial 
acquaintance, we will say, with some Jews ; he 
has picked up, here and there, some Hebrew 
phrases ; he has noted a few distinguishing cus- 
toms among some classes of Jews ; he has also 
met with some loud, uncultured characters 
among them. Without any knowledge of true 
Judaism whatsoever, he will now set himself up 
as a teacher, to inform, through the pages 
of a novel, the general public what the Jews 
are, how they live, how they act, how they 
speak. He commits an injustice of the greatest 
character; he makes them speak a frightful 
jargon; he does more to increase the already 
existing prejudice than many a better book caii 



14 THE JEW IN ENGLISH I'ICTION. 

undo; lie gives them sentiments which are a 
disgrace to honest men ; he at times tries to 
glaze over things by a kind word, or a pat on 
the back, as it were, but this is only the treach- 
erous device that strengthens the wrong view 
presented. "No worse enemy of the Jews exists ; 
these novels are hidden thrusts ; they are in 
truth as pernicious in their tendency as any 
anti-Semitic sheet ever published; they rest 
on a little superficial knowledge ; they present, 
not the Jew, but a caricature ; they introduce to 
us some coarse, loud individuals as Jews, and 
hence, as will be inferred from this, as types ; 
they strengthen that widely prevalent notion 
of a peculiar people, and are to be denounced as 
falsities, as misrepresentations, as calumnies. 

Because there are some vulgar, uncultured 
people among the Jews, is this a reason that 
such are to be specially represented as Jews? 
Because some Jews have grown suddenly rich, 
and are loudly ostentatious, is this a cause that 
the flagrant injustice be done, that they, with 
these characteristics, be held up by the name of 
their religion ? 'T is time that this should 
cease ; 't is time that those maligned and slan- 
dered should speak their word and counteract 
this dangerous and insidious influence ; 't is time 
at last that Jews altogether be not characterized 
and represented by the few who are what they 
are, not as Jews, but as men. Any man, be he 
Jew or Christian, Mohammedan or heathen, who 



I. INTRODUCTORY, 15 

has been bred in ignorance, and bas suddenly 
acquired a fortune, will be sboddy, for tbus be 
tbinks to air bis importance, as bis money is tbe 
only claim be bas tbereto, will be vulgar and 
loud, and generally unpleasant to cultured peo- 
ple; but bis religion bas nougbt to do tbere- 
witb. Tbat is tbe trait in buman nature wbicb 
makes tbe parvenu, wbo bas been a favorite 
character for ridicule from ancient days to our 
time, made typical by Moliere's famous presen- 
tation of Jourdain in "Le Bourgeois Gentil- 
bomme." But Moliere speaks not of bis par- 
venu's religion ; be presents bim as a type, tbat 
can be met witb every day. How would not a 
book be decried, or else considered beneatb 
notice, tbat would introduce an Episcopalian, or 
a Metbodist, or a Presbyterian, as tbe represent- 
ative of sboddyism, of vulgarity, of loudness ! 
We can readily imagine what a reception sucb 
a work would receive. Tbe author would be 
ridiculed, tbe statements made be denounced as 
false, or it might become a curiosity illustra- 
tive of the strange perversion of a mind tbat 
could couple Christianity witb qualities with 
which tbat religion, as well as no other, bas any 
thing to do. And yet there is as much sbod- 
dyism among all those classes as among the 
Jews ; as much glitter and tinsel, as much par- 
venuism and loudness. 

Culture takes time. The children of tbe up- 
start will be more cultured and refined than be : 



16 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

his grandcHldren still more bo. Among us 
surely, in this land, tliere is no cause for any 
casting of stones ; for the great and small for- 
tunes have heen acquired only comparatively 
lately, and the earliest ancestor of families 
which make even the greatest pretensions to 
culture is a very small distance of time off, 
when compared with that length of years back 
when the ancestors of the Jews, with the 
Greeks, comprised the culture of the world. In 
discussing any of these books, it is not apposite 
to adduce the fact that we all enjoy the broad 
humor and strange characteristics of the Irish, 
as presented in works of fiction; that Hugo 
portrays the French character in its distinctive- 
ness; that Stinde seizes upon the peculiarities of 
Berlin life; that Howells sets forth the traits of 
American society — all this means something 
different — those are national peculiarities, which 
characterize only those depicted ; but the quali- 
ties attributed to the Jew in these works are 
such as can belong to any man. Further, 
it is neither legitimate nor truthful to treat the 
Jews as nationalities are treated. There are no 
Jewish national traits; as Englishmen, they have 
the qualities of Englishmen, and so with every 
nation among whom they may dwell. The Jew- 
ish nation ceased to exist over eighteen hundred 
years ago ; for centuries the Jews were a people 
without a country owing to the hostility of 
Christian legislation, but since the close of the 



I. INTRODUCTORY. 17 

eighteenth century when the American Republic 
was born and the emancipation of the Jews in 
European lands began, they have been admitted 
gradually to citizenship among the various 
western nations of Europe and incorporated into 
the national life. But the world has not yet 
learned this lesson completely. Unfortunately? 
the doctrine must still be preached that Jews 
are to be contrasted with Christians, not with 
Englishmen, Germans, or Americans. 

Following this line of thought, there is but 
one manner in which the modern Jew can be 
truthfully represented in fiction, and that is 
as the follower and confessor of his religion ; 
and this only by such as have made a long 
and exhaustive study of the same. Whether the 
presentation offered be true or false, favorable or 
unfavorable, is another question ; but as long as 
the fictionist keeps within these lines, he is at least 
faithful "unto the feelings and sentiments of the 
Jews themselves in this respect. Then it be- 
comes the province of the critic to determine 
whether the writer has given a true statement 
of the religious acts and customs or not. As 
George Eliot, with perfect propriety, introduced 
into her earlier tales the Dissenters, and gave a 
vivid picture of their religious manners, habits, 
and customs ; as Scott portrays the Scotch Cov- 
enanters, with all their fire, their obstinacy, 
their dogged determination, and their habit of 
introducing religious discussions at all times, so 



18 THB JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

that Mause Headrigg, for example, has become 
a character fixed and typical; as Hawthorne 
now and then discourses on the religious cus- 
toms of the New England Puritans ; so, too, 
and so only, are the Jew and the Jewish religion 
to be employed for fiction's purposes, if they are 
to be employed at all, in novels and plays rep- 
resenting modern life. One great novelist of 
our days alone has done this, the writer of 
" Daniel Deronda ;" if correct or not in her pre- 
sentation, is a question to be discussed later on. 
The name Jew is the proud cognomen of the 
confessors of that parent religion, through 
whose medium the truth of the one God was 
divulged to the world. However, ere they are 
Jews they are men. As Jews, they stand a dis- 
tinctive religious community ; as men, they are 
as their neighbors, one with them in all else. 
If they are to be distinguished from them, it is 
only in this ; in all else there is nothing peculiar. 
Every representation as aught else is false. 
Christian and Jew are lost in that wider rela- 
tionship of man, as Lessing's N^athan so well 
says to the Templar : "Are Christian and Jew 
such before they are men ? Oh ! would that I 
had found in you one whom it sufficed to be 
called man ! " 



n. Marlowe's "jew of malta." 19 



II. MARLOWE'S "JEW OF MALTA." 

In the works of fiction, both dramas and 
novels, whereof I shall treat, it is not my 
purpose to go into an exhaustive criticism ex- 
cept in so far as this is necessary for a full ex- 
position of the Jewish portions. In regard to 
these I shall aim to point out in how far the pre- 
sentation is correct, where the writer was actu- 
ated by prejudice, and where the Jewish charac- 
ter has been misunderstood either for good or for 
ill. I shall include only the productions of 
such authors as have gained eminence in the 
world of letters, for their names lend a charm 
and an influence to their writings which those 
of less note could not and can not hope to at- 
tain. The first work in point of time (we shall 
be guided by the dates of the appearance of the 
various works) is the " Jew of Malta," by Chris- 
topher Marlowe, of whose " mighty line," Ben 
Jonson speaks with admiration. This play, 
with the atrocious character of Barabbas, the 
most villainous, perhaps, on the English stage, 
gives us an excellent opportunity to judge of 
the opinion in which the Jews were held, for 
Barabbas is meant to be representative, and the 
play was exceedingly well received by the popu- 
lace. 



20 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

It must bftve been written, as has been 
pointed out, after the year 1588, since in the 
prologue occur the words, " now that the Guise 
is dead," referring to the assassination of the 
third duke of Guise, in 1588. Whether the con- 
ception of the character was original with Mar- 
lowe or not, we can not determine ; its plot, as 
was the case with the plays of most of the 
English dramatists of that period, may have 
been borrowed from some tale of which all 
traces are lost. It has been suggested that 
owing to its unrelieved cruelty, it may have had 
its source in some Spanish novel, but the Span- 
iards felt no more prejudiced toward the Jews 
than did any other nation ; the hatred was the 
same throughout Christian Europe. One por- 
tion of the play, namely, that in which the heir 
to the throne of Turkey confers the great honor 
on the Jew of making him Governor of Malta, 
may have been suggested by the following cir- 
cumstance, rumors of which may have reached 
England, and which, without exact knowledge, 
the poet may have perverted and used for his 
play. In the sixteenth century, some years be- 
fore the composition of this drama, a Jew, Jo- 
seph Nassi, had played a great role at the Turk- 
ish court, and had been a favorite of the Sultan 
Soliman, but still more had the Crown Prince 
Selim (note the name of the Prince Selim Caly- 
math) been attached to him. This Jew frus- 
trated the designs of France against Turkey, 



n. Marlowe's "jew of malta." 21 

brought Venice to terms, inasmucli as it was 
througli his agency and advice that the Turks at- 
tacked and captured the Isle of Cyprus from Yen- 
ice, and for his fidelity and his services he w?s 
named by the Sultan, Duke of ]N"axos and ruler 
of the Cyclades. It is quite possible that the 
story of the remarkable career of this Joseph 
]N'assi became known, and, being interpreted ac- 
cording to the general conception held of the 
Jews, it was concluded that he could have risen 
to this eminence only by means of deception and 
extreme wickedness; by this distortion of the 
true facts the play may have a thread of an his- 
torical foundation, viz : that one fact, that a Jew 
was made governor of an island through the 
instrumentality of the Turks. But apart from 
this, which is at best but a mere conjecture, the 
drama lacks all probability, both in history and 
in fact, as far as the Jewish portions are con- 
cerned. In history, because at the time that 
the play was written there were no Jews in 
Malta, and if there were they were so in secret, 
while here they are represented as possessing 
wealth and power and as professing their re- 
ligion openly. As they were expelled from 
Spain in 1492, so were they driven from all the 
lands over which Spain exerted any power or 
influence, such as Sicily and other islands of the 
Mediterranean, among them Malta (vide Zunz 
Zur Geschichte und Literatur,508, 528), and they 
did not return to these localities until they were 



22 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

earnestly solicited to do so, witli the promise 
that they would not be disturbed or maltreated, 
the return taking place in the year 1728. The 
title is, therefore, unfortunate, but this may be 
only a minor point ; it is, at best, not meant to 
be a presentation of what was thought of the 
Jews in Malta but in England. It has been 
stated frequently that neither Marlowe nor 
Shakespeare is to blame for the characters they 
present, as there were no Jews in England at 
the time, they having been expelled by Edward 
I., in 1291, and not permitted to reside there 
until the year 1656 ; that the Jewish charac- 
ters of these poets were but what they learned 
from hearsay, or from the perusal of foreign 
works, and, therefore, they personally harbored 
no ill-will ; but it has been conclusively shown 
of late that there were Jews in England during 
that period (see Lucien Wolfs Menasseh ben 
Israel, Introduct. XIV). The dramatist, with his 
strong love for intensity, which he shows in all 
his chief characters, saw, in the generally ac- 
credited reputation of the Jews as usurers, an 
opportunity of satisfying his own love of exag- 
geration and the prejudices of the rabble. " The 
overloaded sensational atrocities of the Jews oi 
Malta," are so marked that nought but the blind- 
est prejudice could have prevented any one from 
at once seeing that even the most debased of hu- 
man kind could not have perpetrated them. 
Such was the ideal Jew of popular ignorance 



n. Marlowe's "jew of malta." 23 

and intolerance, at a time when these unfortu- 
nates were looked upon as a "whetstone 
to keep one's Christianity sharp upon," and 
to these passions of the multitude Marlowe 
truckled, making of Barabbas " a mere monster 
exulting in crime, for its own sake, in the most 
impossible way." It seems to me that even the 
name Barabbas was chosen with a purpose ; for 
that name recalled to the Christian populace the 
thief in whose stead Christ was crucified, and 
would be more apt than any other, with the 
possible exception of Judas Iscariot, to arouse 
the wrath of the masses, if such arousal were 
necessary. The play itself is one long recital 
of the wickedness and the monstrosities of the 
Jew ; it abounds in preposterous and ridiculous 
assertions. The first two acts are quite strong, 
the last three form a string of impossibilities 
even mare absurd than those which the first 
part of the play contains. There are a few in- 
stances wherein the dramatist strikes a true note 
in Jewish life and Jewish character, a very few, 
and these we will discuss first. In his opening 
speech, Barabbas says : 

" And thus methinks should men of judgment frame 
Their means of traffic from the vulgar trade, 
And as their wealth increaseth, so inclose 
Infinite riches in little room. — (Act I, Sc. I.) 

This represents, in truth, the Jewish policy in 
those ages of persecution. At any moment, at 



24 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

the caprice of the king they might he expelled, 
at the instigation of the demagogue they might 
be attacked or mobbed, and hence it was ex- 
ceedingly necessary that they should have their 
wealth, their only source of power and the only 
reason wherefore they were at all tolerated, in 
as small a compass as possible, so as to be able 
to carry it with them to distant lands, to be 
driven to which was so often their fate in those 
dark days. 

Another glimpse of truth we have, and this 
is one of the bright spots in the early parts of 
the play, in the wondrous love Barabbas is made 
to feel for his daughter Abigail — 

"I have no charge nor many children, 
But one sole daughter whom I hold as dear 
As Agamemnon did his Iphigen 
And all I have is hers." — (Act I, Sc. I.) 

And further on — 

" So they spare me, my daughter, and my wealth !" 

—(Ibid.) 

And again, when the great loss has come upon 
him, and his riches are to be taken from him : 

•' But whither wends my beauteous Abigail? 
Oh ! what has made my lovely daughter sad ? 
What, woman ! moan not for a little loss. 
Thy father hath enough in store for thee." 



n. maelowe's " JEW of malta." 25 

And in taking leave of her, he says : 

" Farewell, my joy; and by my fingers take 
A kiss from him that sends it from his soul." 

—(Act II, So. I.) 

All writers seem to recognize this love of the 
Jew for his own ; and although Barahhas later 
disowns and curses his child, when she turns 
apostate, still is this love, as thus set forth in 
the first part of the drama, the only redeeming 
quality in the wretched character, ^o Jew 
ever employed his child for the purposes that 
Barahhas is made to employ Ahigail, to he a go- 
hetween, to pretend to he desirous of entering 
the convent, to become a party to wrong-doing. 
The pure, innocent girl, the ideal of Jewish 
home life, was guarded as the apple of the eye 
by the parents until she was given into the safe- 
keeping of the husband. If there is one aspect 
of the Jewish life that kept itself pure, it is the 
home life ; and to represent the Jew, as this 
play does, as giving such counsel to his daugh- 
ter, is preposterous. 

Another true word Barahhas is made to utter ; 
had it been observed by the dramatist himself, 
he would not have drawn the Jew as he did, 
when it was only too palpable that the populace 
would readily regard it as a faithful picture of 
the Jews in general. 

In Scene II, Act I, he says : 

" Some Jews are wicked as some Christians are; 
But say the tribe that I descended of 



26 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

Were all in general cast away for sin, 
Shall I be tried for their transgression? 
The man that dealeth righteously shall live." 

Never was a truer word spoken ; every Jew 
has been made responsible for the acts of every 
other Jew. It is so with all small and perse- 
cuted bodies, as happened, for example, in the 
case of the early Christians in the Roman Em- 
pire, and of the Quakers in England. Every 
pretext is seized upon to oppress, and the wicked 
actions of one, no matter how virtuous or right- 
eous the remainder, are cited as characteristic 
of all; and no community has had to suffer 
more from this than the Jews. " The man that 
dealeth righteously shall live," no matter to 
what race, nation, faith, or party he may belong. 

The motif of the play is the usury of the prin- 
cipal character. Marlowe wishes to develop the 
character of the usurer, to show to what lengths 
his passion for money can drive him ; and in giv- 
ing this quality to the Jew, he makes it, together 
with the hatred borne toward the Christians, the 
fundamental cause of all the worst crimes that 
the most depraved of natures can carry into 
execution. This motif is plainly stated in the 
prologue, when Machiavel, who is introduced 
for the purpose of reciting the prologue, says: 

" I come not, I, 
To read a lecture here in Britain, 
But to present the tragedy of a Jew, 



n. Marlowe's " jew of malta." 27 

Who smiles to see how full his bags are crammed, 
Which money was not got without my means." 

And when Barabbas attempts to justify bim- 
self in the words cited above, he is answered by 
the Governor : 

*• Excess of wealth is cause of covetousness, 
And covetousness, oh ! 'tis a monstrous sin." 

—(Act I, Sell.) 

Throughout the play we are given to under- 
stand that Barabbas was a great usurer, and 
through this that it was a general characteristic 
of the Jews. That usury is a great crime, none 
will deny ; all moral codes denounce the prac- 
tice, and rightly the usurer is looked down upon 
as among the lowest of mankind. That in the 
times to which this play refers and in which it 
was written, many Jews followed this occupa- 
tion, can neither be denied, nor will I now offer 
the excuses that all other avenues were closed 
to them, that if they did not charge a high 
rate of interest, they would receive nothing, for 
whenever they lent out their money, it was at a 
great risk, owing to the uncertainty whether they 
would ever receive it again. To the following 
fact, however, not generally known, it may be 
well to call attention. It was not the Jews only 
who practiced usury in those lawless, troubled 
times, and what is more, usurious as they were, 
they were not as hard nor as grinding as were the 
Christians, who could and who did pursue the 
same occupation ; for, when by law it was for- 



28 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

bidden the Jews in France to exact usury, the 
populace demanded and the nobles advised that 
the law be repealed, for the Christian usurers, to 
whom they were now compelled to resort, were 
so exorbitant and outrageous in their demands 
that the Jews were kind indeed in comparison. 
In deference to the popular cry the decree was 
repealed. 

Bernhard of Clairvaux, as early as the twelfth 
century, tells us that the Christian usurers, who, 
as he says, should really not be called Chris- 
tians, were in their practices much worse and 
more exacting than the Jews. Popular poets in 
their songs refer to this terrible vice as common 
among the Christians. Brother Berthold, in 
one of his sermons, addresses his hearers : " Ye 
miserly, avaricious usurers, how will you an- 
swer at the last judgment the accusations of 
these poor creatures, whom you are robbing, 
and who will appear against you ? " And many 
another voice of witnesses then living could be 
cited in proof of the statement that this abom- 
ination was practiced by many others besides 
the Jews. We shall have occasion to again 
refer to this fact in a later criticism. Wrong is 
it, therefore, to make this a Jewish character- 
istic, as it is considered; practiced it was by 
some Jews, but Jewish it is not. 

Judge, now, from the following, what was the 
purpose of the author, whether he did not per- 
mit his desire to exaggerate, coupled with the 



n. Marlowe's " jew of malta." 29 

popular opinion of the Jew and his wish to 
subserve this popular opinion, to run away with 
him, and produce, not a man, but a monster 
delighting in wickedness for its own sake. 
First, a characterization of the Jews, and then 
Barabbas's description of himself: 

" We Jews can fawn like spaniels when we please, 
And when we grin we bite; yet are our looks 
As innocent and harmless as a lamb's. 
I learned in Florence how to kiss my hand, 
Heave up my shoulders when they call me dog, 
And duck as low as any barefoot friar ; 
Hoping to see them starve upon a stall, 
Or else be gathered for in the synagogue, 
That when the offering basin comes to me 
Even for charity, I may spit into 't." 

—(Act II, Sc. III.) 

What a summing-up! the lowest, the vilest 
qualities are here enumerated : sycophancy, hy- 
pocrisy, cruelty, hard-heartedness, revenge ! l^o 
wonder that a populace, ignorant, unthinking, 
superstitious, should be goaded on to all ex- 
cesses imaginable, when they heard such words 
as these. The Jews were seen only in such pic- 
tures ; it was the same spirit that produced 
works like those of Eisenmenger, Pfefferkorn, 
et hoc genus omne — the spirit of hatred and pre- 
judice, or of religious bigotry and fanaticism. 

Add to the effect of such lines these which 
occur a little further on, and it will not be diffi- 
cult to imagine all the venom they were pro- 



30 THE JEW m ENGLISH FICTION. 

ductive of. Says the Jew, in answer to his 
daughter: 

" It 's no sin to deceive a Christian, 
For they themselves hold the principle, 
Faith is not to be held with heretics, 
For all are heretics that are not Jews. 
This follows well, and therefore, daughter, fear not." 

—(Act II, So. III.) 

If ever doctrine was un-Jewish, this is. With 
all the provocation they received, and which 
would have made a retaliation on their op- 
pressors, in words, in feelings, and in deeds, if 
possible, both natural and justifiable, we can 
find in Jewish writings, representative of Jewish 
thought, nothing that breathes such a spirit. If 
it was indulged in by individuals, goaded on by 
the treatment to which they were subjected, it 
was not Jewish, and this drama is certainly 
meant to present the Jew, typical as he then 
was, and his feelings toward the Christians. 
Let us hear what some of the best minds and 
loftiest characters among the Jews have to say 
on this same subject of the feelings to be enter- 
tained toward non-Jews. In a work written 
some time before this, we find the following 
sentences : " Deceive none intentionally in your 
transactions ; also, no non-Jew." " If a Jew or 
a non-Jew come to you and desire to borrow 
money, and you wish not to lend it, because you 
fear that you will not receive it again, say not 
that you have no money." "In your inter- 



31 

course with non-Jews, act with the same up- 
rightness that you manifest toward Jews ; call 
the attention of the non-Jew to his errors. If 
a non-Jew ask you for advice, tell him truly 
what you think." Another speaks in the fol- 
lowing strain : '' Such as deceive and roh non- 
Jews belong to the category of those who blas- 
pheme the name of God." " In trade and in 
social intercourse, no person, no matter what 
may be his religion, may be deceived by word 
or deed." 

Compare this internal evidence, taken from 
the writings of the Jews themselves, with that 
line, " It 's no sin to deceive a Christian," and 
compare, too, these statements of the perse- 
cuted with the edicts, expressions, and decrees 
found in the works of the writers of the religion 
in power, whenever they refer to the Jews, and 
then conceive how grotesquely false a repre- 
sentation this statement is of the teachings of 
the Jewish religion, as interpreted by its best 
and most competent minds. 

Yet all this is nought, when compared with 
the terrible and shocking description Barabbas 
gives of himself and his doings, so monstrous 
and impossible that it is indeed strange that, 
even in that benighted time of prejudice, it 
should not have called forth condemnation. 
This is the recital of the accomplishments and 
deeds of the master villain : 



32 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

" As for myself, I walk abroad of nights 
And kill sick people groaning under walls ; 
Sometimes I go about and poison wells, 
And now and then, to cherish Christian thieves, 
I am content to lose some of my crowns, 
That I may, walking in my gallery, 
See 'em go pinioned along by my door. 
Being young, I studied physic, and began 
To practice first upon the Italian ; 
There I enriched the priests with burials, 
And always kept the sexton's arm in ure, 
With digging graves and ringing dead men's knells.'* 

—(Act II., Sc. III.) 

And so he goes on to tell all his numerous 
crimes. In the play, he is made to set two in- 
nocent young men upon one another, that they 
kill each other ; he poisons a whole nunnery, 
kills friars, curses his daughter with curses loud 
and deep, betrays the city into the hands of the 
Turks, invents infernal machines wherewith to 
slaughter all the Turks ; so that, in comparison 
with him, lago becomes almost a figure of light. 
He is merely a monster of crime impossible in 
existence ; nothing more nor less. 

It can be no one's intention to justify him, for 
he is guilty of well-nigh every crime imagin- 
able. Black indeed must have been the opinion 
of the Jews, if such a play of horrors could be 
even received. But received it was, and that, 
too, with favor. The greatest actor of the day 
produced it, and the pit rang with applause; 
such was the opinion of the unhappy people, 



n. Marlowe's " jew of malta." 33 

whose only crime was tliat they were a living 
reproach to the extravagant claims of the re- 
ligion reigning triumphant. It was written 
with no conception or study of the Jewish 
character; not one fundamental trait, except 
domestic affection, is mentioned, and even that 
is later subverted. It has retained its place as a 
classic of the language ; and, although its ex- 
travagances are no longer believed, still is it 
proof of that intolerance which "could treat 
them (the Jews) with an amount of insolence 
and injustice which, in the eyes of a modern 
audience, half deprives the Christian of his 
right of sympathy when the Hebrew's day of 
vengeance arrives." The Hebrew longs for no 
day of vengeance ; he thanks GTod that those 
dark days of bigotry and hatred are past, which 
made even possible the construction by an au- 
thor, and the reception by the public, of a pro- 
duction so dark, so monstrous, so unreal, as 
" The Jew of Malta." 



34 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 



III. SHAKESPEARE'S ^^MERCHAN"T OF 
YEOTCE." 

Of all the Jewish characters in the domain of 
English fiction, none is more widely known, or 
has heen the subject of so much discussion, as 
Shylock, in Shakespeare's " Merchant of Ven- 
ice." Of all the creations of the genius of the 
world-poet, none, we may say, with the possible 
exception of Hamlet, the most Shakespearean of 
Shakespeare's characters, has received greater 
attention than the Jew as by him portrayed. 
From all points of view has he been regarded — 
as the incarnation of wickedness on the one 
hand, as the injured party seeking redress on 
the other; as the villain by this critic, as the 
justifiable plaintiff by that ; as the Christian- 
baiting fire-eater by one, as the ardent defender 
of his religion and his race by another. His 
motives, his actions, his character, his every 
word, have been subjected to examination and 
criticism, and every one has found something to 
censure, to excuse, to reprove, to justify, to 
condemn, to condone. 

It has been stated that Shakespeare did not 
intend to give a picture of the Jews in general. 
We think he did; certain it is, at all events, 
that the portrayal has always, by the general 



m. Shakespeare's " merchant of Venice." 35 

reader and student, been taken as representative 
of the Jewisti character, and in this light it 
must be treated. Perhaps in the course of our 
investigation, contrary to the usual acceptance, 
we shall find that Shylock was in the right ; that 
the sympathies of Shakespeare were with him ; 
that, in causing him to be defeated by a mere 
quibble, he demonstrated the strength of his 
cause, but yet could not permit the Jew to 
issue victorious over so many noble Chris- 
tians, in the face of the general feelings enter- 
tained toward the Jews at that time — feelings 
which had received favorably and applauded to 
the echo the atrocities of the "Jew of Malta." 
But to the play first ; to an analysis of its mo- 
tives and characters later. In this, as in many 
of his dramas, Shakespeare took his plot from 
others ; in truth, he combines two stories, that 
of the Three Caskets, related in the collection 
of tales known as the " Gesta E-omanorum," and 
that of the Pound of Flesh. This latter story 
was old, and had appeared in many forms. The 
first mention we can find of the flesh story is in 
Hindoo mythology. From there it must have 
traveled westward, and with the sentiments har- 
bored toward the Jew, was brought into con- 
nection with his relations to the Christians. 

As early as the fourth century, in the time of 
Elaine, the mother of Constantine, we find it 
noted. In Europe it gained its foot-hold from 
the conception that the creditor, according to 



86 THE JEW m ENGLISH FICTION. 

the Roman law, liad full power over the debtor, 
and could do with him as he pleased. The 
story appears in eleven different versions, into 
four of which no Jew is introduced. These are 
all imaginative productions. There is but one 
account of this transaction which rests on a 
historical foundation. This reverses the posi- 
tions of the Jew and the Christian. In his life 
of Pope Sixtus Y., Gregorio Letti, the biog- 
rapher, records the following episode : In 1587, 
Paul Mario Sechi, a merchant of Rome, gained 
information that Sir Francis Drake, the English 
Admiral, had conquered San Domingo. He 
communicated this piece of news to Simone 
Cenade, a Jewish merchant, to whom it ap- 
peared incredible, and he said : " I bet a pound 
of flesh that it is untrue." "And I lay one 
thousand scudi against it," replied Sechi. A 
bond was drawn up to that effect. * After a few 
days, news arrived of Drake's achievement, and 
the Christian insisted on the fulfillment of his 
bond. In vain the Jew pleaded, but Sechi swore 
that nothing could satisfy him but a pound of 
the Jew's flesh. In his extremity, the Jew went 
to the governor. The governor of the city 
promised his assistance, communicated the case 
to Pope Sixtus, who condemned both to the 
galleys — the Jew for making such a wager, the 
Christian for accepting it. They released them- 
selves from imprisonment by each paying a fine 
of two thousand scudi toward the hospital of 



" MERCHAin: OF VENICE.'' 37 

the Sixtine "bridge, wliicli the pope was then 
erecting. 

It is not to be for a moment supposed, as has 
been suggested, that Shakespeare changed the 
r6le8 of the Christian and the Jew. He but 
followed the ancient traditional story, which 
had long been circulated and was well known. 
From the similarity, both of circumstances and 
of names, there can be little doubt but that the 
poet obtained this portion of the plot of the 
play from a tale called " The Adventures of 
Gianotto," published at Milan, in 1558, in a col- 
lection entitled ^^11 Pecarone.'' In this tale, 
with but a few variations, we have the story as 
detailed in the " Merchant of Venice." There 
was also a ballad, '' Gernutus, the Jew of Yen- 
ice," with the same subject-matter, and another 
ballad, entitled " The Northern Lord," of much 
the same tenor. In all of these versions of the 
story, there is the same subterfuge of not shed- 
ding a drop of blood; two of them introduce 
a woman in disguise, who, like Portia, by this 
eame argument, frees the debtor, and discomfits 
and defeats the Jew-creditor. The plot is bor- 
rowed; Shakespeare's treatment thereof, how- 
ever, is entirely his own. Many critics, among 
others the German Bodenstedt, have looked 
upon the " Jew of Malta" as the forerunner of 
Shylock. In time it was, but in nought else ; if 
any thing at all, but a few trifling hints were 
caught from it. There is all the difference be- 



88 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

tween the two plays that can be imagined as 
existing between a frightful and hideous cari- 
cature, which Marlowe's Jew is, and a heroic, 
intensely tragic figure, proud, deep, at times 
rising even to grandeur, such as Shakespeare's 
Jew is ; all the difference between a representa- 
tion calculated to stir only the worst passions of 
a listening multitude, and a characterization 
delineated with the purpose of doing some good 
and justice to the despised race, in showing 
plainly that if they felt as they did, there was 
ample cause therefor ; they were only following 
out the lessons taught them by their Christian 
neighbors. Without considering now whether 
or not the sentiments uttered by Shylock were 
Jewish, which we shall do later on, let us first 
study the character as presented, and learn 
whether, throughout the play, sufficient reasons 
are not given for the actions as portrayed, and 
whether the ending of the whole is not in defer- 
ence to the spirit of the time and of centuries 
later, which the poet could not overcome ; for 
how could a " villain Jew " gain the better of 
his foes? That Shakespeare joined in the vul- 
gar feeling of prejudice which then existed, we 
can scarcely say when he drew this character. 
Shylock has the better of all his adversaries in 
every argument. Their reasoning is shorn of 
all its strength when he brings against them his 
''tremendous artillery of withering scorn and 
unanswerable fact." E'o where in the play does 



ni. 

any one for a moment hold strength against 
Shylock, until at the end, with all arrayed 
against him, he is overwhelmed and broken by 
an ingenious trick which his enemies eagerly 
seize upon. 

What lends the atrocious aspect to the play is 
the pound of flesh, but only with a bond of this 
character could the poet's purpose be accom- 
plished. The Jew is actually victorious and tri- 
umphant in all but point of fact; the argu- 
ments are all in his favor ; beneath the surface a 
deep current runs, which he who follows can 
understand. There are beautiful and tender 
spots in his character ; it is only when all the 
wrongs imaginable have been heaped upon him 
— curses against his nation, vile abuse and con- 
tumely against himself, insults against his relig- 
ion, scorn and invective against his daily mode 
of life and business — that his nature rebels, that 
thoughts and plans of revenge arise within him. 
But let us examine this more in detail. The 
play opens with an account of Antonio the mer- 
chant's affairs; he has all his wealth out on 
venture, and is sad and anxious. To him comes 
his bosom friend, Bassanio, who has squandered 
his patrimony by his spendthrift habits, has 
borrowed money from his friends without pros- 
pect of repaying them, and now, when his for- 
tunes are at the lowest ebb, will make one bold 
stroke of speculation, try to win the hand of an 
heiress, and set up an establishment with her 



40 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

money; but, before the prize can be won, he 
needs the money to deck himself out properly, 
to appear before the lady he would woo. For 
this purpose he approaches Antonio. The latter 
is in narrow straits ; he can not aid his friend 
personally. Bassanio is authorized to borrow 
sufficient for his needs in Antonio's name. 

Antonio's credit must have been low, indeed, 
if they had to resort to Shylock, the hated Jew, 
for the loan. Shylock is introduced in conver- 
sation with Bassanio ; he weighs his words and 
reasons well, carefully recounts Antonio's ven- 
tures, and concludes that he may take his bond. 
Every thing goes well thus far. Antonio comes 
upon the scene ; Shylock ruminates and medi- 
tates a long time ; he intends to lend the money 
all the while, but ere he promises to do so, he 
will drive home a pointed shaft ; he will show 
his petitioners how little cause they have to ex- 
pect favor from him : 

" Signer Antonio, many a time and oft, 
In the Rialto, you have rated me 
About my moneys and my usances. 
Still have I borne it with a patient shrug; 
For suffering is the badge of all our tribe; 
You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog, 
And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine, 
And all for use of that which is mine own. 
Well, then, it now appears you need my help: 
Go to, then ; you come to me and you say, 

• Shylock, we would have moneys; ' you say bo; 
You, that did void your rheum upon my beard, 



m. Shakespeare's " merchant of Venice/' 41 

And foot me, as you spurn a stranger cur 
Over your threshold : moneys is your suit. 
"What should I say to you? Should I not say, 

' Hath a dog money? Is it possible 
A cur can lend three thousand ducats?' Or 
Shall 1 bend low and, in a bondman's key, 
With bated breath, and whispering humbleness, 
Say this : 

' Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last ; 
You spurned me such a day ; another time 
You called me — dog; and for these courtesies 
I'll lend you thus much moneys?'" 

—(Act I, Sc. III.) 

What a world of reason and argument here ! 
What finely turned scorn and sarcasm ! This 
can not be answered ; he has been insulted as a 
man, as a merchant, as a Jew ; his pride, his 
manhood, so long compelled to bear all with a 
patient shrug, here breaks forth with vehemence 
against those who had thus trampled upon him ; 
all the pent-up passion bursts its bounds, and 
the outraged feelings express themselves in 
words. And his statements can not be gain- 
said. All that Antonio can say is a dogged 
"I am like to call thee so again, to spit on 
thee again, to spurn thee, too." Here speaks 
the feeling of intolerance of the time ; no con- 
sideration, no compassion ; here lies a rebuke to 
the enemies of the Jew. After all the vehement 
exclamations of his wrongs, he is met by a 
"And I will do so again." Can, we may 
imagine the poet asking, it be expected that 
aught but feelings of hatred toward his op- 



42 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

pressors fill the breast of the Jew, of any man 
who is thus treated ? On this line the character 
of Shylock is worked out ; he is given no mercy, 
no quarter ; he expects none, and he gives none. 
Cruelty, wrong, hatred, and oppression have 
gradually congealed all his kindlier motives 
toward his Christian neighbors. This, it would 
seem to any observer, would be the natural con- 
clusion. Shakespeare, from his vantage ground, 
was justified in taking for granted that hatred 
and desire for revenge would exist in the Jew's 
heart, judged he him from his knowledge of 
human nature. 

Shylock offers to lend the money for three 
months on the giving of a bond by Antonio, 
that if the money is not paid, he shall be per- 
mitted to cut a pound of flesh from his body. 
This is acceded to, considered even kind ; they 
call him now " gentle Jew," and find " there is 
much kindness in the Jew." Thus far we have 
Shylock presented to us in purely business 
transactions. He next appears to us in his 
home. He has a daughter whom he fondly loves, 
for she is the only offspring of his beloved Leah. 
As a tender father, he intrusts every thing to 
this daughter, and she, perfidious to her trust, 
robs him, leaves his house to marry with a 
Christian, and acts the r6le of the ungrateful, 
undutiful child. He is wounded where the 
wound rankles most keenly ; his beloved child 
has turned traitorous. Rather would he see her 



III. Shakespeare's '' merchant of Venice." 43 

dead at his feet, than to have married with the 
Christian. His hard-earned wealth has heen 
taken ; he is cruelly and mercilessly twitted hy 
the unfeeling gentlemen of Venice ; worst of 
all, he hears that the ring given him hy his he- 
loved wife has been exchanged hy his daughter 
for a monkey. Love is trampled on ; affection 
is outraged ; his enemies gloat over his pain and 
his misfortunes ; all the warm blood freezes in 
his veins, the tender feelings he may have had 
become hardened into stone. They have railed 
at him and derided him ; they have stolen his 
child and his fortune. They have insulted his 
name and his religion. The poet shows every 
cause why Shylock should have acted as he did, 
and when he heard of Antonio's losses, it were 
unnatural that he should not rejoice. They did 
not treat him so well that he should now show 
mercy. How he silences them, when in plead- 
ing for their friend, Antonio, he rises to the dig- 
nity of defender of an outraged and cruelly 
treated race ! How the thunder of his words 
overwhelms them with rushing sound and 
force. "He hath disgraced me and hindered 
me half a million ; laughed at my losses, mocked 
at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my 
bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine ene- 
mies, and what's his reason ? I am a Jew. Hath 
not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, or- 
gans, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? 
Fed with the same food, hurt with the same 



44 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed 
by the same means, warmed and cooled by the 
same winter and summer as a Christian is ? 
If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you 
tickle us, do we not laugh ? If you poison us, 
do we not die ? If you wrong us, shall we not 
revenge ? If we are like you in the rest, we 
will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a 
Christian, what is his humility ? Revenge. If 
a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his suf- 
france be by Christian example? Why, re- 
venge. The villainy you teach me, I will exe- 
cute, and it shall go hard, but I will better the 
instruction." (Act III, Scene I.) In this pass- 
age it is that Shakespeare shows that if the Jew 
hate the Christian, it is not without cause ; he 
presents the Jew here as he would any man 
who, insulted, derided, mocked in all his dearest 
interests and connections by those upon whom 
he can not retaliate, now, when the power is in 
his hands, rejoices that his day has come. That 
this is natural can not be denied. Antonio him- 
self expected nothing else, for when he bor- 
rowed the money, he said : " If thou wilt lend 
this money, lend it not as to thy friends, but 
lend it rather to thine enemy, who, if he break, 
thou mayest, with better face, exact the pen- 
alty." (Act I, Scene III.) And it seems 
strangely inconsistent that Antonio, knowing 
and expecting this, should have awaited any 
other fate at the hands of his enemy. The time 



nio Shakespeare's " merchant of Venice." 45 

for tlie redeeming of the bond is drawing nigli. 
Bassanio, living in luxury and basking in the 
sun of beauty and of pleasure, forgets all about 
his friend until he is awakened to the extremity 
by a letter. Pressed, he makes known his neg- 
ligence, is dispatched by Portia with a sufficient 
sum, and more, to redeem the bond, but arrives 
too late. Shylock will accept no money; he 
wants revenge ; he will have his bond. It is all 
right in law ; the laws of Venice may not be 
transgressed. He is pressed by all to show 
mercy, he to whom mercy never was shown, 
and when asked by the Duke, " How shalt thou 
hope for mercy, rendering none ? " he again 
gives one of those unanswerable arguments of 
his which effectually silences all opposition. In 
argument he always has the stronger side : 

"What judgment shall I dread, doing no wrong? 
You have among you many a purchased slave, 
Which, like your asses, and your dogs and mules, 
You use in abject and in slavish parts, 
Because you bought them ; shall I say to you, 
Let them be free, marry them to your heirs? 
Why sweat they under burdens ? Let their beds 
Be made as soft as yours, and let their palates 
Be seasoned with rich viands ? You will answer, 
The slaves are ours; so do I answer you; 
The pound of flesh which I demand of him 
Is dearly bought.'tis mine, and I will have it. 
If you deny me, fie upon your law ! 
There is no force in the decrees of Venice. 
I stand for judgment; answer, shall I have it? 

—(Act IV, Sc. L) 



46 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

The law is on his side ; the court can not 
answer him ; he is victorious. At the last mo- 
ment a messenger arrives with the news that a 
learned judge has come from Padua, who will 
undertake the case. Portia, in the guise of a 
lawyer, enters. After trying to move Shylock 
from his purpose, the judge seems to give in to 
him, but, at the last moment, by a quibble, turns 
the scale, he is to shed no drop of blood ; he is 
to take exactly one pound — as if he might not 
have taken less if he so willed. This quibble, a 
loop-hole of escape, is readily grasped. Shy- 
lock is dumbfounded and defeated. Ridiculed, 
scorned, mocked, he goes forth, deprived of his 
goods, compelled to turn Christian, forced to 
recognize his faithless child and give her of his 
wealth. 

Throughout the play, then, as we have briefly 
noted those portions most necessary to an un- 
derstanding of the Jew's position, we feel that 
he has the better of his enemies ; his reasonings 
are potent, his wrath and indignation just ; his 
injured feelings as parent, as merchant, as man, 
as Jew, excite compassion. I have referred 
to the remarkable advance made over the delin- 
eation of the Jew in Marlowe's play, and will 
take occasion to quote the words of an acute 
thinker, who says : " ISTo one can carefully com- 
pare Shylock with Barabbas, without recogniz- 
ing a purpose to modify and soften the popular 
feeling toward the Jew, to picture a man, where 



ni. Shakespeare's " merchant of Venice." 47 

Marlowe painted a monster, if not indeed to 
mirror for Christians their own injustice and 
cruelty." The one atrocious element of the 
play, which has caused all the wrongs of Shy- 
lock to be overlooked, and has withdrawn all 
sympathy from him, is the pound of flesh; it 
has been sufficient to cover his name with ob- 
loquy, and make it a by-word. This is the one 
point wherein Shakespeare's otherwise humane 
and noble production is guilty of gross injustice. 
But, as stated above, something was neces- 
sary to defeat the Jew; he could not, with the 
feelings and animosities that existed toward him 
at that time, issue entirely victorious; that 
would have seemed ridiculous. The feelings oi 
the poet, however, are with him ; he is arguing 
the cause of an oppressed race ; he did not de^ 
sire to press the unfortunates still lower and 
add another burden to the heavy load they 
had to carry, as the play unexpectedly proved, 
for it was not understood; he tried to give 
reasons for their supposed actions and feelings, 
and to mitigate the harsh sentiments of the 
Christians. It had all been well done had not 
this elejoaent of the pound of flesh been intro 
duced; any thing less atrocious (if the Jew, 
in deference to popular opinion had to be 
defeated in the end) had served the purpose 
better, especially as it is so peculiarly un- 
Jewish. It had been more appropriate to have 
reversed the rdles of the two religions, for even 



48 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

had the Jews had such desires, Christianity, 
wielding the scepter of power, could readily have 
incapacitated them. History plainly tells which 
of the two caused the blood to flow, and in its 
fierceness sacrificed hecatombs upon hecatombs 
of human victims to its hatred. If it be pointed 
out that the fierce spirit of retaliation which 
Shylock assumes when he demands that flesh is 
Jewish, because the lex talionis is embodied in the 
Mosaic law, we need only refer to the later Jew- 
ish lawbooks, commentaries on and explanations 
of the Mosaic code, wherein it is expressly noted 
that no literal interpretation of this law was 
ever applied or intended, that restitution in 
money was all that could be asked or required. 
When the money, therefore, is offered to Shy- 
lock, had he acted in the sense of the Jewish 
law he would have accepted it ; but the Roman 
law permitted the creditor to beat, maltreat, 
maim, mangle the debtor to his heart's content, 
for he was his property, and on the Roman law 
the case rests. When Shylock is defeated, he 
is not so in law ; even here he has the right, and 
the Roman law was violated, for the quibble 
that he shed not a drop of blood has been often 
shown to be a mere trick, as the blood belongs 
to the flesh, and it is just as when a man buys 
a field he buys every thing thereto belonging, 
trees, plants, rocks, whatever there may be. 
But however admirable Shylock's fervent plea 
for his people may be, however ardent his words 



m. Shakespeare's " merchant of Venice." 49 

in the former parts of tlie play, in his bitter re- 
venge he ceases to be representatively Jewish ; 
" sufferance was the badge of all his tribe," they 
prayed for respite and for peace. It is not neces- 
sary to reiterate or multiply quotations from 
Jewish writers bidding their co-religionists en- 
tertain kindly feelings toward non-Jews, which 
would make impossible any such transaction as 
that of the pound of flesh. There were even 
times when in particularly favorable intervals 
in Spain and Portugal, in France and Turkey, 
the Jews rose to the highest power, when it had 
been possible for them to take sanguinary ven- 
geance on their former oppressors and perse- 
cutors, but we do not hear that feelings of re- 
venge took them to any such lengths. The 
cruelty was all on the other side. Shylock 
states the case strongly. Through him Shake- 
speare read a wonderful lesson to his contempo- 
raries ; it is their persecution that has brought 
the Jew low. " The villainy you teach," Shy- 
lock speaks of. The intolerance is strongly 
brought out. The Jews were insulted in every 
thing they held dear, chiefly their religiou. 
They had all the strongest provocations for en- 
tertaining feelings of revenge, and the play 
shows that had they followed examples set be- 
fore them such would have been their desire 
when opportunity was granted them. Wise 
teachers counseled forbearance. Suffering was 
looked upon as resultant from sin. God, in 



50 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

his own time, would bring salvation and re- 
demption to his people. That was Jewish 
thought. They took it not into their own 
hands. Often may they have cried in their an- 
guish, "How long, O God, how long?" But 
they firmly believed in the statement of the Bib- 
lical writer, " Vengeance is mine, saith God." In 
accordance with this thought the vengeance of 
Shylock, as Jewish, is an impossibility. It 
should never be regarded as typical. 

When Shylock, at the end of his trial, says, in 
answer to the question of the Duke, whether to 
retain half his fortune he will turn Christian, "1 
am content," the character, as Jewish, is again 
not consistently carried out. What, after he has 
been so outraged and insulted on account of his 
religion, after he has cursed and renounced his 
daughter for marrying a Christian, he, to save 
his property, likewise turn Christian ! What, 
this Jewish ! In those days, when old and 
young, men and women, youths and maidens, 
sacrificed their lives rather than change their 
religion! Were Shylock, as representative of 
Jewish thought, fervently attached to his re- 
ligion as we must imagine the Jews to have 
been, valuing it even more than life, it had been 
unnatural to have used the words " I am con- 
tent." As a humane man, and a great mind 
that could rise above passion and prejudice, 
Shakespeare speaks a mighty word, that sounds 



m. Shakespeare's " merchant of Venice." 51 

all the stronger because of its singularity ; but 
into the true thoughts and feelings of the 
Jew, he could not enter, the opportunity was 
not hise 

In regard to that other disagreeable trait with 
which the Jew is burdened, usury and avarice, 
which, strong as it is, is made even subservient 
to his bitter revenge, for he refuses a great sum 
when offered him in satisfaction of his claim, 
I need no more than refer to the many state- 
ments of contemporary writers quoted in the 
chapter on the "• Jew of Malta," These show the 
prevalence of this practice among all classes. 
Christian and Jewish, It was a curse to which 
all were addicted, one of the many canker- 
worms which were gnawing at and sapping the 
strength of society. It is the fashion, from igno- 
rance, to consider it only Jewish ; we will let the 
case rest on the testimony of those living wit- 
nesses, who inform us otherwise. 

Iq the ardor for his religion which Shylock dis- 
plays in the earlier portions of the play, in his 
strong statements of the wrongs done his people, 
in his close intimacy with his Jewish friends, as 
suggested by the dialogue with Tubal, in his in- 
tense love for his daughter, in his disappoint- 
ment, rage and anger at her having married one 
of the oppressing class, Shylock is Jewish, 
There are natures, too, among the Jews, as among 
all other classes, with that intense hatred and 
desire for vengeance which stop at naught, not 



52 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

even blood, but, as one of sucb, he is not repre- 
sentatively Jewisho 

Shylock stands as a grand creation of a master 
mind, essentially tragic, intense in his every word 
and action, a picture of what tbe best-inten- 
tioned and highest mind, wishing to do some 
justice to the Jews, and to relieve the black and 
terrible picture presented by an earlier play, 
conceived to be true. In its subtler and finer 
portions, it was not comprehended by the many, 
and by its denouement, aroused all the passions 
which it wished to allay. 

" ITeither Christianity nor Judaism is to blame, 
or to be commended for Antonio or Shylock." 
We must look upon them as individuals, with- 
out regard to religion. In any other case that 
had been understood. With the Jew it was 
not, for prejudice and hatred were too strong. 
The time has come when the production of the 
play no longer arouses these passions. It is 
studied and witnessed like any other of Shake- 
speare's plays. The evil it has done is past, for 
the spirit which interpreted it for evil, exists 
no longer. Only with the narrowest minds does 
the idea still hold that Shylock is such because 
he is a Jew ; the happy thought is spreading 
that a man's religion is not to be made responsi- 
ble for his faults. The encomiums passed upon 
many a confessor of that same religion, to whose 
detriment Shylock has always been pointed out 
as the true picture and embodiment, offer suffi- 



in. shakespeake's " merchant of Venice," 53 

cient reason to believe that the spirit of the age 
would favorably receive a play with a Jew pos- 
sessing all the noble qualities with which Shake- 
speare invested him who is considered by many 
the prince of gentlemen — Antonio, " The Mer- 
chant of Venice." 



64 THB JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 



IV. CUMBERLAIsTD'S " THE JEW." 

The latter half of the eighteenth century was 
pervaded by a spirit of freedom and humanity, 
which appeared in all the provinces of thought 
and of action; in thought, Kant opened up a 
new channel; in action, the American and 
French revolutions gave ample evidence that a 
new state of things had arisen, that the regime 
of the middle ages was at an end, and mankind 
had entered upon an entirely different course. 
Among those who still had most to suffer from 
the influence of medieval times were the Jews, 
but even for them light was breaking. In Ger- 
many, the new spirit had become embodied in 
Lessing's two dramas, wherein he speaks a 
powerful word, as only he could speak it, for 
those whose disinterested protectors had been 
so few, and in Dohm's noble work, which pleads 
for a full emancipation of the Jews, an enduring 
monument, attesting a liberality of thought and 
sentiment, rare even then. In France, Mira- 
beau's " Memoir of Mendelssohn," the writings 
of the Abbe Gregoire, and others, gave proof of 
the same. In England, the position of the 
Jews was that of aliens. SJome efforts had been 
made toward an amelioration of their lot and 
an emancipation from their civil disabilities. 



rv. Cumberland's " the jew." 55 

In truth, a bill to that effect had been passed in 
Parliament in 1753, but on the petition of the 
city of London and other towns, it was repealed 
in the following year. Their residence in the 
country was one of sufferance. True, a few 
noble voices had been raised in their interest, 
but the feelings of the . masses had not much 
changed from what they had been in the days of 
persecution. 

In literature, nothing had been published by 
any writer of note in their behalf. The Jew of 
Malta and Shylock, interpreted in the worst 
light, still stood in literature as representative 
characters. Perhaps it was that, at the end of 
the eighteenth century, the spirit of Lessing and 
of Mirabeau was wafted across the channel, for 
at this time a play was produced with a Jew as 
the principal character, who, in nobility, un- 
selfishness, and benevolence, can stand alongside 
of Lessing' s !N'athan, though the English play 
does not evince the transcendent qualities of 
mind and thought as does the German, " The 
Jew," a play by Richard Cumberland, was 
written in 1794. It is generally conceded to be 
one of the finest efforts of this voluminous 
writer. We can not but admire the freedom 
and breadth of thought which could discern in 
one of a usually despised race the noble traits 
wbich are ascribed to the Jew, Sheva. Cumber- 
land wrote his memoirs, and from them let me 
quote several expressions that do him great 



56 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

honor. He had written, some time before, a 
Spanish story, in which he introduced a noble 
character, Abraham Abrahams. Of this he 
says : " I wrote it upon principle, thinking it 
high time that something should be done for a 
persecuted race. I seconded my appeal to the 
charity of mankind by the character of Sheva, 
which I copied from that of Abraham" (Me- 
moirs, 804). And in another place, in speaking 
of the reception of his play, he says : " The 
benevolence of the audience assisted me in 
rescuing a forlorn and persecuted character, 
which, till then, had only been brought upon 
the stage for the unmanly purpose of being 
made a spectacle of contempt and a butt for 
ridicule. In the success of this comedy, I felt, 
of course, a greater gratification than I had ever 
felt before on a like occasion." (Ibid. 340.) 

Times were changing. The new spirit was 
abroad. The personation of kindness and 
benevolence was offered in a Jew, of hardness 
and meanness in a Christian, and yet the drama 
was favorably received. Whatever may have 
been thought of the impossibility of the exist- 
ence of such a character among the Jews, still 
the very fact of its being portrayed, evidences 
a better and more tolerant spirit. In an earlier 
day it would not have been possible. A gradual 
change in public opinion was taking place. 
The time was ripe. Patience, only patience! 
A few years more, and the deeply wronged 



rv. Cumberland's " the jew." 57 

children of Israel would take their stand accord- 
ing to their merits, not held down by prejudice. 
The stage is one of the pulses of the popular 
life. The favor evinced to a play attributing 
the noblest qualities to the Jew was a good sign. 
The mind of the people was being prepared. 
England, then aristocratic England, clinging 
with all its strength to national traditions, was 
wheeling about and falling into line ; one of its 
traditions was the inferiority of the Jew. Late 
was England in granting full emancipation, but 
there all things work slowly. The people must 
be educated by agitation. "When the necessity 
of a reform has dawned upon the popular mind, 
as in no other country, it takes strong hold, 
never to be revoked; so was it with the emanci- 
pation of the Jews. A few greater and nobler 
minds agitated for years this question, gaining 
always more adherents, until it became the sense 
of the country. We might call them the van- 
guard who led the way that the great army of 
the people later followed. Among this vanguard, 
we may surely regard the author of this play, 
whose sentiments have just been expressed. 

Ere proceeding to a discussion of the play, it 
will, perhaps, be well to give a short abstract 
thereof, for it is not now very well known. It 
belongs to the class of plays then popular, but is 
not to be mentioned among the great dramatic 
classics of the language. 

An English baronet. Sir Stephen Bertram, 



58 THE JEW m ENGLISH FICTION. 

close-fisted and miserly, forbids his son Frederick 
to marry a Miss Ratcliffe, whose only crime lies 
in her poverty, but the son has already married 
the lady of his choice. In Sir Stephen's office 
is employed the lady's brother, Charles Ratcliffe. 
The Ratcliffe family, consisting of a widowed 
mother, the son, and daughter, had been in af- 
fluent circumstances, but reverses set in. Charles 
Ratcliffe is dismissed from the employ of Sir 
Stephen, when the Baronet hears of his son's in- 
fatuation with the sister. The good spirit of the 
play is the Jew Sheva. He is generally looked 
upon as a miser ; his occupation is that of the 
conventional Jew of the stage, a money-lender. 
He lives sparingly, and stints himself that he 
may have the more to give to others. He be- 
comes specially interested in Charles Ratcliffe 
and his family, because the young man had res- 
cued him from indignities and injiiries when a 
crowd had set upon the Jew, and this interest 
deepens far when he learns that Ratcliffe is the 
son of the man who, in earlier years, had saved 
him from the auto-da-fe in Spain. This Sheva 
gives utterance to the noblest sentiments. His 
life is devoted to the purpose of doing good 
secretly. His charity is unostentatious, he even 
disclaims all knowledge of the good he does ; 
he carries out the old Talmudic maxim to give 
to the poor in such a manner that they shall not 
be put to shame. 

Of mean exterior, this noble soul, whose 



IHE JEW." 59 

light illuminates so many a dark and cheerless 
life, is content to be misapprehended. He is one 
of those heroes of humanity, who do their work 
well, because they must, seeking no other ap- 
plause than that of an approving conscience. 
This man the world misjudges, being guided by 
outward appearances, as he himself says : '' The 
world knows no great deal of me. I live spar- 
ingly and labor hard ; therefore, I am called a 
miser — I can not help it — an uncharitable dog, 
I must endure itj a blood-sucker, an extor- 
tioner, a Shylock — hard names, but what can 
a poor Jew say in return if a Christian abuses 
him ? We have no abiding place on earth, no 
country, no home ; every body rails at us, every 
body flouts us, every body points us out for 
their very game and mockery." That is past. 
The Jew has his home and his country in the 
free lands upon which the spirit of liberty has 
breathed. 

By stating his lonely and solitary condition 
thus strongly, the philanthropy of Sheva stands 
forth the more vividly — a man without a 
country, yet attached to the land wherein he 
dwells ; a man misunderstood and reviled, yet 
kindly disposed toward the helpless, upon whose 
heads he will not visit the sins of his detractors. 
See what a difference between this conception 
and that of Shylock. As remarkable an advance 
as Shylock showed over Barabbas, a still greater 
and more notable advance is Sheva over Shy- 



60 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

lockc Shylock is reviled, abused, mocked, 
scorned, and he harbors plans of revenge. 
Sheva is reviled, abused, mocked, scorned, and 
he is not deterred from entertaining and fulfill- 
ing plans of benevolence. A different spirit 
was working. The Jew was coming to be bet- 
ter understood. Kindlier sentiments were en- 
tertained toward him. One of the chief elements 
of the Jewish character, that of charity, was 
grasped by the author of this play and elabo- 
rated. Shylock is the embodiment of the fierce 
spirit of revenge, Sheva of the gentle spirit of 
benevolence. But, being misunderstood and 
wrongly placed, he states the case strongly. 
The world knows him not. Full emancipation 
has come, and we still ask, Does not the world 
judge the Jew harshly even now ? Does not the 
world judge without knowledge ? The spirit of 
intolerance in theory exists no longer, in practice 
it does. We know that the feelings of fifteen 
centuries, handed down from generation to gen- 
eration, do not die out so quickly; prejudice 
still lurks. It breaks forth every once in a 
while, to the shame of the time and its people. 
True, it can no longer be said with Sheva, "they 
are railed at, flouted, mocked publicly," but the 
spirit of the great and free minds, the Lessings 
and the Mirabeaus, the Washingtons and the 
Jeffersons, the Macaulays and the Gladstones, 
must become much more prevailing, ere it can 
truly be said that not even in thought do medi- 



IV. Cumberland's " the jew." 61 

eval prejudices exist. Knowledge, not blinded 
by passion or envy, can alone overcome them — 
recognition of the true status of the Jew, 
neither undervaluing nor overestimating him. 
That is all that is asked for — to judge him as 
other men are judged, to feel that he is a man 
of and among men. 

Sheva is approached by Frederick Bertram, 
who asks that he lend him three hundred 
pounds, for he can obtain naught from his 
father. Sheva promises to lend him this sum. 
When left alone he seems to lament his promise, 
but stops short and soliloquizes thus : 

" But soft, a word, friend Sheva ! Art thou 
not rich ? Monstrous rich ? Abominably rich ? 
And yet thou livest on a crust ! Be it so ; thou 
dost stint thine appetites to pamper thine affec- 
tions ; thou dost make thyself to live in poverty 
that the poor may live in plenty." 

Upon his performing some kind act, Charles 
says to him in surprise : " Thou hast affections, 
feelings, charities." Sheva gives an answer re- 
minding of Terrence's famous phrase, " I am a 
man, nothing that is human is indifferent to 
me." Sheva's reply is, " I am a man, sir; call me 
how you please." And he is answered, "I'll 
call you Christian then, and this proud merchant 
Jew ; " whereupon he finely says, " I shall not 
thank you for that compliment." 

A magnificent reply and rebuke truly. It 
seems that it was and still is the custom to call 



62 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

every tiling good Christian ; a good life is desig- 
nated a Christian life ; a good deed, a Christian 
deed ; a good man, a Christian man. Even when 
it is wished to compliment Jews highly, it is said 
that they show Christian charity, or speak 
Christian words. 

While I do not for a moment controvert the 
claims of Christianity to goodness when it is 
carried out in the true spirit, as little as I 
would contradict the purity of any upright sys- 
tem of life and of morals, still we, who are in 
religion Jews, say with Sheva, in his finely 
turned phrase, in good works, " We will not 
thank you to call us Christians," for our good 
deeds have a basis many centuries older than 
Christianity, a basis in the words of our writings. 
" Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," 
" Thou shalt open wide thy hand to the poor 
and needy ; " in the phrases, " Happy is he that 
careth for the poor," " He that giveth to the 
poor, lendeth to the Lord," and in • many 
sentences of similar import scattered through 
the Jewish writings. Good deeds are not pecu- 
liarly Christian, nor Jewish, nor Mohammedan, 
nor Buddhistic, they are of man, and when 
Sheva says : " I am a man, call me how you 
please," his thought is broad and all comprehen- 
sive. His words embody the spirit of humanity, 
that true non-sectarian spirit which is by no 
means universal, nor even understood — that can 



rVo Cumberland's "the jew." 63 

look upon God, not as the Christian's God, nor 
the Jew's God, but humanity's God. 

This noble heart, beating beneath an ignoble 
exterior, Eatcliffe learns to appreciate ; the 
heart which Sheva has shown to no man, and 
which he does not carry in his hand. When he 
is asked why he can spare so little to himself, 
being so charitable to others, he replies that it 
is his purpose to do all the possible good while 
he lives, and repay the debt of gratitude when 
he dies. The true spirit of charity rules this 
man, for when he gives Frederick the three 
hundred pounds, to make the acceptance easy, 
he causes it to appear that a favor is done him 
by Frederick's taking the money. " I pray you 
take them. Why will you be so hard with a 
poor Jew as to refuse him a good ba.rgain, when 
you know he loves to lay his money out to profit 
and advantage ? " The profit and advantage to 
which he laid out his money was charity, and 
the interest he reaped on the principal was the 
good it brought to others. Could it be more 
beautifully put ; making it appear a favor to him 
that the other should take his money ? 

Sir Stephen is told that Sheva is secretly very 
charitable. He can not believe it. Sheva is ac- 
cused and maligned by Sir Stephen for giving 
his son money, is called a villain for upholding 
the son against the father. In answer, one of 
those noble sentiments is again uttered : " I do 
uphold the son, but not against the father^ It is 



64 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

not natural to suppose the father and the op- 
pressor one and the same person. I did see your 
son struck down to the ground with sorrow, cut 
to the hearto I did not stop to ask whose hand 
had laid him low ; I gave him mine and raised 
him upc" Sir Stephen, in amazement says: 
"You, you talk of charity?" And he is 
answered : "I do not talk of it, I feel it." 
Deeds, not words, this Jew is powerful in. 

"When he learns that money alone is necessary 
to heal the breach, satisfy Sir Stephen, and 
make all happy, he deposits ten thousand pounds 
in the name of Ratclifie's sister, the wife of 
Frederick, The paper by which this sum was 
made over is shown to Sir Stephen, the father. 
He is thunderstruck, he can not conceive that a 
Jew can even lend a small sum without the de- 
sire of doubling. Upon his expressing such 
thoughts, Sheva answers in one of the finest pas- 
sages of the play : 

" What has Sheva done to be called a villain ? 
I am a Jew ; what then ? Is that a reason none 
of my tribe should have a sense of pity ? You 
have no great deal of pity yourself, but I do 
know many noble British merchants that do 
abound in pity, therefore, I do not abuse your 
tribco" Here is expressed the same thought we 
have met with before, and whose importance 
seems to be widely and generally recognized. 
Every writer, Christian and Jewish, who has 
spoken for the Jews has reiterated it ; as we 



iVc Cumberland's " the jew." 65 

have met it before, so sliall we meet it again. 
Does prejudice still exist ? We can trace it to 
this as one of the leading causes. One is made 
responsible for all, and all for onCo If one Jew 
commits a wrong, all are blamed; if one hun- 
dred Jews do good, only the hundred individuals 
receive credit therefore What holds good in 
the one case, must hold good in the other. The 
evil as well as the good in individuals may not 
be set to the account of communities, among 
whom the individual is not even known. Paul 
and Iscariot were both Jews, but many a pious 
Christian who still execrates the nation from 
whom the betrayer of his master sprung, seems 
to forget altogether that of the same nation, 
Paul, the real founder of their religion, was onCc 
The evil, be it ever so small, is remembered ; the 
good, be it ever so great, is forgotten. If Jews 
there are, who reach not the standard of right= 
eousness, it is not as Jews that they are such. 
As little do we lay to the blame of Christianity 
all the villainy of church members, Sunday- 
school superintendents and teachers, who in 
great numbers seek refuge in the land of safety 
beyond the border. Let the reproach be cast 
where it belongs. The teachings of religion 
pure, can produce but good ; the perversity of 
man, acting in contrariety to those teachings, 
produces the eviL 'Ro community at large can 
be responsible for the acts of every individual. 
Kow, that his son's wife has 10,000 pounds, 



be THE JEW m ENGLISH FICTION. 

Sir Stephen is ready to forgive and clasp both 
to his heart. And when all praise Sheva's mu- 
nificence, he says : " Do not talk of my bounty, 
I do never give away for bounty's sake. If pity 
wrings my heart whether I will or not, then do 
I give. How can I help it ?" 

It is only now, after he has done all this kind- 
ness, that he learns that his early preserver was 
Ratcliffe's father. " I did always think when I 
did heap up my moneys with such pain and labor, 
that I would find a use for them at last." The 
10,000 pounds he has made over to Ratclifi'e's 
sister without her knowledge, and when Sir 
Stephen asks her about the money, she disclaims 
knowing any thing about it, and the merchant 
concludes that he has been deceived, but later 
he learns better, when Ratcliffe brings Sheva 
forward with the words : " This is the man 
. . . the widow's friend, the orphan's father, 
the poor man's protector, the universal philan- 
thropist." " Hush, hush," pleads Sheva. " You 
make me hide my face. Enough, enough. I 
pray you spare me. I am not used to hear the 
voice of praise, and it oppresses me." And the 
last words of this "universal philanthropist," 
after he has declared his intention of making 
Ratcliffe his heir, are : 

" I do not bury it (his money) in a synagogue, 
or any other pile. I do not waste it upon vanity 
or public works. I leave it to a charitable heir, 
and build my hospital in the human heart." 



THE JEW.^' 67 

This is the noble character drawn by an En- 
glish writer of the past century ; all honor to him 
that he could, in conception, anticipate the com- 
plete vindication of the Jew in that country 
during the past few decades. We can almost 
forgive the heinousness of Barabbas when we 
contrast therewith the nobility of Sheva. With- 
out one living blood relative, upon whom to 
lavish affection, or from whom to receive marks 
of love, his large nature goes far beyond the 
narrow limits of relationship, of religion, of 
tribe, and his heart beats for humanity. To 
look him in the face is to see nothing of his 
heart. He is covered with contumely and in- 
sult, yet he grows not bitter, nor makes man- 
kind responsible for individual doings. 

He is a Jew at heart ; has learned well the 
lessons of his religion — "he is merciful to all 
mankind ;" he harbors no ill-will ; " he can for- 
give his enemy, much more his friend;" he for- 
gets no deed of kindness, but the feeling of 
gratitude, deep-seated in his heart, makes him 
happy when he can aid the family of his bene- 
factor. He is maligned by the proud and hard 
merchant, but yet he aids the son when in need. 
He revenges himself for the harsh language 
used and the cruel treatment to which he is sub- 
jected by doing good. A pure, unselfish spirit, 
great, truly great, but yet content to be so 
humble. The world shall never know that so 
bright a spirit dwelt upon it, and that, too, in- 



68 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

cased within the then considered despicable body 
of an unbelieving Jew; for he sighs not for 
monuments that shall emblazon his name, but 
he "builds his hospital in the human heart." 
A powerful lesson the author of this play taught ; 
powerful indeed in his day, and none the less so 
in ours. Aye, we may say, he spoke a word 
wonderful at that time, and which the educa- 
tion of a century has not succeeded in instilling 
into the masses; and that powerful lesson is, 
that a man's creed does not condemn him. To 
the Christian of his time he said, a Jew can be 
noble as well as a Christian. 

" Belief is not the criterion of virtue, for if 
it were such, and that belief exclusively Christian, 
what a small section of philanthropists would 
there be to mitigate the sorrows of this harsh 
world, even if every confessor were a Christian." 

It may be argued that this character is over- 
drawn, that as Barabbas is impossible in wicked- 
ness, so is Sheva impossible in goodness. That 
such characters are rare, exceedingly rare, we 
must grant; but they are not impossibilities. 
Suppose, however, for argument's sake, that as 
here portrayed, the character is exaggerated; 
that even considering the goodness of heart 
possible, the liberality of spirit shown which 
considers man as man without the attributes of 
any special character of belief or religion, is un- 
thinkable in a Jew of that day, it was a neces- 
sity for the author to bring forward such a fig- 



IV. Cumberland's "the jew." 69 

ure of light. The contrast to the conventional 
presentation must be great, to leave the proper 
effect. The popular mind requires strong light 
to be thrown upon it to be impressed. So beau- 
tiful a character standing forth from the dark 
back-ground formed by the hardness of the 
Christian merchant, could not fail to have a salu- 
tary effect. Marlowe had inflamed the populace 
by his villain Jew; Cumberland interested it 
by his Jew benevolent. With a little pruning 
down, the character can stand as the portrayal 
of a noble, large-souled man, which the Jew 
Sheva aims to be. Harrow the Jew is not any 
longer. He is cosmopolitan, the universal citi- 
zen. His religion is broad, one God, and one 
humanity. His sympathies are broad as his re- 
ligion. He is, to repeat the words of Sheva, 
" A man, call him how you will." 



70 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 



Y. SCOTT'S ^'lYANHOE/' 

Of all the works of fiction wherein a Jew is 
made to play a prominent rdle, there is none, 
with the exception of Shakespeare's play, that 
has been as widely read as the romantic tale of 
Sir Walter Scott. Isaac of York is known to 
hundreds who have never read a line of Jewish 
history, and Eebecca has excited admiration and 
sympathy among thousands to whom such a 
portrayal of a Jewess must have appeared ideal 
and highly colored, indeed, permissible in fiction, 
but impossible in fact. 

That the writer was in sympathy with his 
subject is evident. There are passages which, 
for truthful presentation and for fervency, could 
not have been excelled by a son of Israel wish- 
ing to enlist interest in the past sufferings of his 
people. I will not speak of the charm of the 
novel nor of its merit as a work of art ; what 
concerns us are the Jewish passages, in how far 
are they true, in how far overdrawn, in how far 
deficient. It was not only the interest which 
romance threw over the subject that could have 
induced the great Scottish writer to portray 
these characters. There can be no doubt but 
that sympathy with an oppressed people who, 
in his own land in that late year wherein he 



V. scott's "ivanhoe." 71 

lived, still suffered under civil disabilities, had 
much to do with the production of the work, 
for his was a peculiarly generous nature, and 
throughout his writings, the sympathies of the 
reader are always enlisted on the side of the 
weaker party. That the tale has some founda- 
tion of this kind, both in sympathy and in fact, 
we learn from an authentic notice which has 
been left us of the reason why Scott wrote a 
novel wherein Jews played such important 
roles. A Mrs. Skene, whose husband was an 
intimate friend of the poet-novelist, gives the 
following as the cause of the introduction of 
Isaac and Rebecca into the tale : " Mr. Skene 
sitting by his (Scott's) bedside, and trying to 
amuse him as well as he could in the intervals 
of pain, happened to get on the subject of the 
Jews, as he had observed them when he spent 
some time in Germany in his youth. Their 
situation had naturally made a strong im- 
pression, for in those days they retained their 
dress and manners entire, and were treated with 
considerable austerity by their Christian neigh- 
bors, being still locked up at night in their own 
quarter by great gates, and Mr. Skene, partly in 
seriousness and partly from the mere wish to 
turn his m.ind at that moment upon something 
that might occupy and divert it, suggested that 
a group of Jews would be an interesting feature 
if he could bring them into his next novel. 
Upon the appearance of Ivanhoe, he reminded 



72 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

Mr. Skene of the conversation, and said yon will 
find the book owes not a little to your German 
reminiscences." (Lockhart's Life of Scott, pp. 
77-78.) 

By taking so early a period as the time of the 
action, Scott not only entered into his own pe- 
culiar province, the description of the days of 
romance and chivalry, but by showing in this 
popular form the origins of some of the wrongs 
of the Jews, how they were compelled, well nigh 
driven, to become what they were, how the fault 
lay with their oppressors, he could better enlist 
the sympathy of the thinking classes than by 
merely offering a picture of the Jews as they 
were in his day. The time of action is toward 
the end of the twelfth century, when, in the ab- 
sence and captivity of Richard the Lion-hearted, 
his brother John was meditating a seizure of the 
throne. The position of the Jews in England at 
this time was much like that of their brethren in 
Central Europe. They had been in the country 
a long time, had acquired wealth, were used by roy- 
alty and nobility as sponges to be pressed dry when- 
ever money was needed. The story of the prince, 
who, to extort money from a Jew unwilling to be 
thus robbed, had tooth after tooth extracted from 
the mouth of the unhappy victim until he con- 
sented to the extortion, is suggestive of the in- 
dignities to which these people were subjected. 
There was a special tax which they were com- 
pelled to pay, but with all that they throve, for 



73 

Abraham Ibn Ezra, the renowned Spanish 
scholar, in his wanderings through Europe, 
visited also London a short time before the 
period whereof we speak, and he found there a 
community, prosperous as the Jews could then 
well be, for the wholesale persecutions and ex- 
pulsions which became prevalent during the fol- 
lowing centuries had not yet been inaugurated. 
But the little tranquillity they had enjoyed was 
not for long. They had no home ; " except, per- 
haps, the flying fish, there was no race on earth, 
in the air, or in the waters, who were the objects 
of such unremitting, general, relentless persecu- 
tion as the Jews of this period. Upon the slight- 
est and most unreasonable pretenses, as well as 
upon accusations the most absurd and ground- 
less, their persons and property were exposed to 
every whim of popular fary." These few words 
show that in the author of this work we have one 
who knew whereof he spoke. He well under- 
stood the position of the devoted people. I need 
not here expatiate upon all the cruelties to which 
they were subjected ; how, by a systematic course, 
and by frequent decrees the popular hatred 
toward them was fostered ; how it was forbidden 
Christians to associate with them, as though they 
had been accursed ; how none were permitted to 
eat or drink with them; how Christians were 
prohibited to employ Jewish physicians; how 
they dared not appear on the streets during 
Holy "Week, for fear of bodily violence; how 



74 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

they were compelled to submit to all indignities 
imaginable, were set upon by mobs, robbed, plun- 
dered, murdered. All that has often been told 
of the time whereof we treat. The representa- 
tive of such treatment in our tale is a rich Jew 
of York, who is portrayed, as in former m- 
stances in the case of Jewish characters, as a 
usurer. Here Scott also seems to indorse the old 
thought that the Jews were the only ones en- 
gaged in these shameful transactions. To again 
show the injustice of this charge, an injustice 
which can not be too often or too strongly in- 
sisted upon, for the idea is so general and wide- 
spread, it will be apposite to quote the words 
of an English historian, who says : " The several 
statutes made to prevent usury after the Jews 
had been expelled from the kingdom prove it to 
be a crime in no way peculiar to them." Scott 
is said to have obtained the outlines for the 
character of Isaac from the stray hints scattered 
here and there in the chronicles of Matthew 
Paris and other early writers about a wealthy 
Jew, Aaron of Lincoln, who lived in the time of 
Henry II. 

The appearance of Isaac, on his introduction 
into the house of Cedric the Saxon, is graph- 
ically described. This we can leave to the vivid- 
ness of the imagination. In one important feat- 
ure of the dress, however, there is an error, and 
that is when we are told that he wore a high, 
square, yellow cap of a peculiar fashion, assigned 



IVANHOE." 75 

to his nation to distinguish them from the Chris- 
tian. Scott, usually so exact in his historical 
notices, is here at fault. It may not be known 
to the present generation that formerly the Jews 
were compelled to wear a distinguishing mark, 
consisting usually of a piece of yellow cloth on 
the garment, and a peculiarly shaped hat, that 
there might be no difficulty in designating 
them. It marked them as targets to be aimed at. 
This terrible indignity was one of the most 
shameful to which they have ever been subjected. 
It was received with a wail of bitterness and of 
anguish from one end of Europe to the other. 
Against its enforcement the Jews struggled in 
vain with might and main, but at the time of 
which Scott wrote, it had not yet been instituted. 
It was the infernal device of Innocent III., the 
bitter opponent of any thing at all smacking of 
heresy, the instigator of the crusades against 
the Albigenses, the uncompromising enemy of 
the Jews. It was first promulgated by him at 
the Fourth Lateran Council, in 1215, for all 
Christendom ; was then from time to time passed 
in the separate ecclesiastical councils held in dif- 
ferent countries ; in England, at the Council of 
Oxford, in the year 1222. So we may imagine 
Isaac as yet exempt from wearing the de- 
grading badge. No need to enter into a de- 
tailed criticism of the character of Isaac : he pos- 
sesses but little strength or power ; " he is but a 
milder Shylock, and by no means more natural 



76 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

than his original." It is not he that enlists sym- 
pathy ; it is the occasional descriptions and ex- 
planations of the lot of the Jews. He is naught 
but the miser, pure and simple, trembling for 
his wealth ; lying, deceiving, so as not to part 
with his hoard ; scarcely once, in all his varied ex- 
clamations, does he rise above himself; scarcely 
once does he speak of the sufferings of his peo- 
ple; scarcely once does he resent the indigni- 
ties placed upon him because he is a Jew — it is 
only as the guardian of his treasures that he is 
portrayed. 

In one notable point I find that Scott, in this 
character, has shown keen observation, and that 
is in the manner in which Isaac is made to speak, 
in short, quick, unconnected sentences. While 
the Jews dwelt together and were Jewish in 
thought as in all else, I think we can well say 
that a characteristic of their thought was its 
quickness. They thought rapidly, and naturally 
this would appear in their speech; the thoughts 
crowded so that often before one sentence was 
concluded another was begun. To Isaac is as- 
cribed this characteristic, and it is justly given. 
Before leaving the character, let me refer some- 
what at length to the one instance in which the 
man rises above the miser, in which he evinces 
pure Jewish feeling. However base, however 
dark, however avaricious the Jewish characters 
may be drawn, still all authors recognize one 
beautiful feature in their lives, Barabbas, Shy- 



V. Scott's "ivanhoe." 77 

lock, Isaac, all love their daughters with all the 
affection of which thej were capable. The 
Jewish home-life, a result, and the only good re- 
sult of the evils of their existence has been 
lauded and extolled by all ; shut off from every 
thing else, excluded from all association with the 
external world, the only place that the kindly 
feelings could take root and flourish was among 
themselves, in their homes. Here they sought 
the warmth of affection which was elsewhere 
denied them, and in the family circle found their 
only joy. Of this, Isaac's feelings for his 
daughter are exempliiicatory. Scott has well 
portrayed this love for, this pride in his daughter. 
This is his one redeeming feature ; here he rises 
above himself. The heart of the father con- 
quers. He becomes at this time admirable. 
Love is stronger than avarice. When he learns 
that his child is in danger, even to him money 
is naught; he throws off the cringing, hypo- 
critical guise, and appears in all the strong in- 
dignation, all the deep anguish of natural feel- 
ing of a father for his child threatened with 
harm : " Take all that you have asked, Sir 
Knight, take ten times more — reduce me to ruin 
and beggary if thou wilt — nay, pierce me with 
thy poinard, broil me on that furnace, spare my 
daughter, deliver her in safety and honor. As 
thou art born of woman, save the honor of a 
helpless maiden — she is the image of my de- 
ceased Rachael — she is the last of six pledges of 



78 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

her love. Will you deprive a widowed husband 
of his sole remaining comfort? "Will you re- 
duce the father to the wish that his only living 
child were laid beside her dead mother in the 
tomb of our fathers ? " In this alone does Isaac 
evince noble traits. In all else he is not sug- 
gestive of better things. It is as if the author 
had said, this is an aspect of character made 
possible by the circumstance of persecution and 
degradation. Look now upon the ideal side of 
the Jewish character — and he holds up the pic- 
ture of Rebecca. Where Isaac utters not one 
word on the religion, Rebecca is the Jewess to 
the core. Isaac is the result of the intolerance 
of centuries, Rebecca is as the fair rose of the 
purity of Judaism untainted and un withered, 
and who will say that the aroma is not refresh- 
ing and pure? Rebecca, "the sweetest charac- 
ter in the whole range of fiction," as Thackeray 
puts it, is a beautiful creation, the grace and in- 
terest of the whole story ; a mixture of womanly 
sweetness and heroic strength, of maidenly 
modesty and conscious worth. With a knowl- 
edge of her unfortunate condition, because she 
is a daughter of Israel, her attitude toward 
those whom a religion triumphant has set above 
her is one of " proud humility, as though she 
knew in her mind that she is entitled to hold a 
higher rank from her merit." An enthusiastic 
worshipper of her God, she has in her the stuflF 
of a martyr. As she is drawn she is well nigh 



V. Scott's "ivanhoe." 79 

perfect, impressing all with whom she comes into 
contact, alike, so that even the dull swineherd, 
upon leaving her house, in spite of his ignorant 
prejudice is forced to exclaim : " This is no 
Jewess, but an angel from heaven." 

Rebecca stands forth prominently in the tale, 
for beauty and perfection almost on a par with 
Shakespeare's women. Of her beauty and love- 
liness, which on her appearance at the tourna- 
ment, is said not to have yielded to the most beau- 
tiful of the maidens who surrounded her, I will 
not speak. All the extravagant expressions of 
praise and admiration which are bestowed on her 
by prince and noble are pleasing, but we hurry on 
to discover of what mettle this paragon of loveli- 
ness is made. She is, in the first place, intensely 
Jewish. The degradation and misery, the op- 
pression and persecution, the thefts and extor- 
tions to which her people must submit are borne 
with resignation. These are but a "sacrifice 
which heaven exacted to save our lives," and she 
reminds her father, who so bitterly laments the 
robberies which the nobles indulge in with im- 
punity at his expense, that the God of their 
fathers has since blessed his store and gettings. 
Unfortunate as she knows the Jews are, she is 
not one to merely lament. In her presence her 
father sinks into insignificance, although her at- 
titude toward him is always of profound respect 
and concern. She utters the truly philosophical 
thought: "We are like the herb which flour- 



8U THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

isheth. most when it is most trampled on." To 
whatever it was owing it is a profound and 
wondrous fact — a miracle, indeed — that any 
of the Jews remained, especially during those 
terrible days of the crusades, when the mobs 
were exhorted to root out the heretics at home, 
ere they marched against them in the East, 
and Jewish blood flowed in streams, and mas- 
sacres were of well-nigh daily occurrence. 
For this wondrous proof of God's protection, a 
pious heart like that of Rebecca was truly grate- 
ful. She could look beyond present afflictions 
and see the finger of Providence guiding the 
course of her people. The trust in God forsook 
her not in the most trying times, even as in the 
real trials and afflictions of the bitter and 
troubled existence of the Jews of those days, it 
forsook not her sisters, many of whom met 
death rather than dishonor; many of whom, 
maiden and wife, young women and old, ascended 
the burning pyre, or thrust the cold steel into 
their bosoms, or cast themselves into the flow- 
ing streams, when these were the only alterna- 
tives left them to forsaking the religion of their 
fathers. The history of the women of Israel of 
those days is a wondrous chronicle — that history 
which details acts heroic and self-sacrificing, 
acts of the martyr. In many instances were 
they the preservers of deep and holy religious 
fervor. Rebecca's strength and resignation are 



81 

not overdrawn ; they were equaled by the fair 
daughters and pious mothers of scattered Israel. 

Rebecca is first brought into prominent con- 
nection with the other personages of the tale 
when she orders the wounded Ivanhoe, who has 
been so kind to her father, to be removed from 
the lists to her house, attends to his wounds and 
heals him. She is one of the wise and learned. 
Her charms are heightened by the powers of a 
noble mind. To many, the whole description of 
Rebecca, particularly this appertaining to her 
influence and her learning, without doubt, ap- 
pears to be much exaggerated, and but the gener- 
ous fancy of a poet's mind ; for it has been so often 
and so repeatedly asserted that among the Jews 
woman held a minor position but little above that 
of a slave, that we may well devote a little space 
to show that a woman of attainments and position 
such as are attributed to Rebecca, was not only 
a possibility, but an actuality among the Jews. 
That she was denied certain legal and ceremonial 
rights which were granted only to man, did not 
prevent her from acquiring a most beneficial in- 
fluence in the home, and becoming the guiding 
spirit of much that was best and purest.' It did 
not hinder her from cultivating her mind and 
exercising her powers of thought. 

I will not quote the hundred and one maxims 
and sayings which can be culled from Jewish 
writings, ancient and medieval, designating the 
high opinion held of her worth, nor point to 



82 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

the many figures which stand forth so promi- 
nently from the pages of the Bible, and with 
which all are familiar. I will not speak of 
the learned women that the Talmud mentions, 
such as Beruriah and Emma Shalom, but will only 
point out that in the darkest days, when the Jews 
were most oppressed, during these times wherein 
our tale runs and later, the Jewish women in 
learning and influence held a lofty position. 
There are mentioned as learned and highly culti- 
vated minds in France, Belletta in the eleventh, 
Hanna in the twelfth century ; in France likewise 
dwelt the family of Rashi, the great commentator 
— he had no sons, only daughters ; all were learned 
(one of them we know by the name of Belle- 
jeune), as were also his two granddaughters, 
Miriam and Anna. Miriam Shapira delivered 
lectures at a college which many students at- 
tended. Deborah Ascarelli and Sarah Copia 
Sullam were poetesses of no mean merit, and 
the name of Donna Garcia Mendes need only be 
mentioned to show that woman was also con- 
sulted in external affairs, and was a patron of 
learning, as the praises sung of her by those 
who knew her, amply testify. A Rebecca in 
mind was then a possibility ; there was noth- 
ing in the prejudices of her people, as has been 
falsely represented, to prevent this. Her skill in 
medicine comes to Ivanhoe in good stead. But 
here, in her relation to Ivanhoe, we find an in- 
congruity with the Jewish character. Leaving 



V. Scott's "ivanhoe." 83 

aside now all the romantic incidents, the possi- 
bility of her having appeared at the tonrnament, 
as is described, or the removal of Ivanhoe, the 
wounded knight, to her home, or of the likeli- 
hood of a Jewish maiden, no matter what her 
skill or gratitude, attending a Christian knight ; 
granting even that, under very extraordinary 
circumstances, such things might be, yet it is not 
at all probable that Eebecca, the fervent Jewess, 
so deeply conscious of the wrongs of her people, 
knowing so well the sentiments entertained 
toward her own by even the best of Christians, 
fully aware that they were looked upon as 
damned, as unfit to be associated with — aye, it is 
impossible that Eebecca, as such a one, could 
have entertained even the slightest tender feeling 
for Ivanhoe beyond that of sympathy for his suf- 
ferings. He is correctly pictured as turning away 
and growing very cold and distant the instant 
he learns she is a Jewess ; she is, indeed, repre- 
sented as struggling against the feeling of love 
that moved her toward the knight : " I will tear 
this folly from my heart, though every fiber 
bleeds as I rend it away." But such a feeling 
could not even have arisen. With Jessica, light 
and frivolous, it was possible ; with Rebecca, 
earnest, deep feeling, so Jewish in every thought, 
never under any circumstances. The novelist 
felt this at least, in so far that the two are not 
united, as he says in his preface : " The preju- 
dices of the age rendered such a union almost 



84 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

impossible." But had he truly portrayed Jew- 
ish feeling of that time, not even by a syllable 
would he have indicated that any passion had 
sprung up, just as little as it was in the case of 
Ivanhoe. Prejudice on the one side, bitter 
wrong on the other, on the part of sincere 
Christian and Jew, should have taught the ab- 
surdity of the entertainment of such a notion. 
The abyss that separated them was too broad 
for them ever to clasp hands across it. The 
conference, however, between Ivanhoe and Re- 
becca, while she acts as his physician, is an in- 
structive one. The author reverts to the fact 
that the Jews were skilled in the science of 
medicine — which is very true, as many great 
physicians of those days were Jews or Arabs. 
In spite of the fact that the Church, in many 
decrees, forbade the faithful to employ Jewish 
physicians, yet there was many a Christian who 
preferred to risk the salvation of his soul by in- 
trusting his body to the skill of the medical 
science of the Jews, than to lose his life by re- 
lying upon the efficacy of relics and ghostly 
signs made by monks. After healing Ivanhoe, 
the only reward she asks is that he shall " be- 
lieve henceforth, that a Jew may do good 
service to a Christian without desiring other 
guerdon than the blessing of the great Father 
who made both Jew and Gentile." 

I need not further detail the plot of the novel ; 
how Rebecca, in the party of Cedric, the Saxon, 



V. scott's ''ivanhoe." 85 

was captured and given over to the Knight 
Templar ; the vivid description of the storming 
of the castle ; the intensely dramatic scenes be- 
tween her and Bois Guilbert ; her refusal to listen 
to him, preferring death to union with him; 
the trial, at which she was accused of being a 
sorceress, that by her arts she had seduced the 
Templar; how her knowledge of medicine is 
cited as a proof of her sorcery, for in those dark 
and ignorant days, every man who possessed 
knowledge which the populace could not com- 
prehend, was regarded as a wizard; learning 
was unnatural, and could be inspired only by the 
powers of the evil. I need not tell of the con- 
demnation, the final result. Many a noble and 
beautiful word does she speak in her conversa- 
tion with the Templar : " Thou knowest not the 
heart of woman ; not in thy fiercest battles hast 
thou displayed more of thy vaunted courage 
than has been shown by woman when called 
upon to sufifer by afiection and duty." The 
most fervent expression of the author of the 
position of some of the Jews he puts into the 
mouth of Eebecca, when, in answer to the taunt 
that the Jews are degraded, as conversant with 
ingot and shekel, instead of spear and shield, 
she bursts forth : " Thou hast spoken the Jew 
as the persecution of such as thou art has made 
him. Industry has opened to him the only 
road to power and influence which oppression 
has left unbarred. Eead the ancient history of 



86 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

the people of God, and tell me if those by 
whom Jehovah wrought such marvels among 
the nations were then a people of misers and 
usurers. And know, proud knight, we number 
names among us, to which your boasted north- 
ern nobility is as the gourd compared with the 
cedar. Such were the princes of Judah. And 
there are those among them now who shame 
not such high descent, and such shall be the 
daughter of Isaac, the son of Adoni-Kam." 
She stood the test. One so thoroughly reliant 
on God could not but wish well to all, and the 
last words she speaks are those addressed to 
Ivanhoe's bride : " May he who made both Jew 
and Christian shower down on you his choicest 
blessings." 

IN'o character has ever received greater enco- 
miums than those passed on Rebecca, and truly 
no figure nobler in every way has been drawn. 
It is said that Scott based his presentation on a 
description given him by Washington Irving, of 
a Philadelphia Jewess, Eebecca Gratz. This 
lady Irving had met at the death-bed of his be- 
throthed, and had been much impressed with 
the gentleness and beauty of her character. Of 
her Scott drew an ideal portrait. 

Divest Rebecca of her romantic surroundings, 
and she, as herself, stands as a figure of pure 
and true womanhood ; a Jewess in feeling, in 
sentiment, in religious thought she is ; her resig- 
nation, bravery, and steadfastness are histori- 



V. scott's "ivanhoe.'' 87 

cally possible, for there were Jewish maidens 
sufficient in those days who, as the records re- 
port, bore suffering as resignedly, as bravely, as 
steadfastly. The character is woven in the 
wreath of poetic fancy ; yet the separate attri- 
butes ascribed to her are all natural and wo- 
manly, and, taken all in all, make such a one as 
we could conceive the highest type of woman- 
hood to be ; her attachment to her father, her 
care for the poor, her attention to the wounded, 
her proud defiance of the evil doer, her enthu- 
siasm for Israel's past, her deep piety, her trust 
in Grod, combine to produce so noble a woman^ 
that of her we may say : 

" From every one, 
The best she hath, and she, of all compounded. 
Outsells them all." 



88 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 



VL dice:e:n'S's "Oliyee twist " and 

"OUR MUTUAL FRIEiTD." 

It has always appeared strange to me that in 
many instances, when the great English writers 
and fictionists had occasion to speak of the Jews, 
they did so in derogatory terms, and classed 
them with the lowest elements of society. Can 
it be that they were wilfully blind, or that they 
did it only for effect? Surely a community 
which is represented by the Montefiores, Solo- 
mons, Goldsmids, Magnus, Jessels, Cohens and 
Rothschilds, can not be so universally degraded 
that, when an especially disagreeable character 
is desired, he is described in unmistakable terms 
as one of this body. Carlyle was guilty of this 
in his Sartor Resartus, and in some of his 
later productions. Thackeray designates as 
Jews, bailiffs and keepers of debtors' prisons, 
personages of the lowest stamp, and has dis- 
torted Scott's beautiful romance by a silly so- 
called sequel, in which his hostile feelings 
plainly appear. A young writer, some fifty 
years ago, after having achieved phenomenal 
success in a new kind of literature, " The Pick- 
wick Papers," presented to the public as the 
second production of his genius a work of an 
entirely different nature, a sensational story, 



VI. Dickens's "Oliver twist." 89 

" Oliver Twist." Here and there appeared 
glimpses of the humor which had marked his 
earlier work, but, on the whole, the tale was cast 
in the mold of the horrible, and depended for its 
strength on the debased characters and the 
criminal life of which Fagin is the central figure. 

It was eighteen years since Ivanhoe had ap- 
peared, and what a contrast between its Jewish 
personage and the character in this, the next 
work of a great English writer, in which a Jew 
plays a prominent role ! In the one the charm, 
in the other the disgrace of the work ; in the 
one the possessor of all human virtues, in the 
other of all human vices ; in the one fair in 
body and fairer in soul, in the other distorted in 
body and black in soul ; the one a plea for kind- 
ness toward a community at that time still un- 
recognized as worthy of the rights of men and 
women, the other calculated to re-awaken all the 
old thoughts, if ever they had died out, of the 
baseness and wickedness of the Jews. 

It is not necessary to give a detailed account 
of the story of the adventures of Oliver Twist, 
of Bill and ^ancy Sykes, of Mr. Bumble and 
his ofiS-ces, of Fagin and his precious pupils, the 
Artful Dodger and Charley Bates ; all that in- 
terests us here is the character of Fagin, who 
is continually obtruded upon our notice as " the 
Jew." Were the miscreant, whenever intro- 
duced upon the scene, merely spoken of as 
Fagin, we would look upon him as an example 



90 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

of London's criminal class, and there would be 
nothing further to arrest our special attention. 
He would be to us nothing more nor less than a 
wicked wretch, who led youths astray, enjoyed 
the fruits of others' wrong-doing, whom he in- 
stigated; with no redeeming qualities, a cow- 
ard, a thief, well nigh a murderer. We would 
consider his punishment deserved, as it is, and 
that graphic description of his last night alive, 
as one of the strongest, though at the same time 
one of the most horrible chapters in the range 
of fiction. Our whole concern with the novel 
would be to judge it upon its literary merits, 
the strength of its characters, the correctness of 
its situations. It would be as the many others 
of the productions of the masters of fiction ; but 
for one reason the work is somewhat more than 
this to us. Our interest does not cease here. 
We have to do with the Jew. 

The author presented this character as a Jew, 
and hence has laid himself open to the charge 
of gross wrong and injustice. The fact of Fa- 
gin being a Jew does not make him what he is ; 
but when the novel was written such an idea 
was far from being deemed impossible. The Jew 
was still an unknown quantity ; people thought 
him sui generis ; it was not known, according to 
popular opinion, what he was likely to do. 

All ideas formed of the Jews, if any were 
held at all, were gathered from hostile writings, 
or were due to prejudice. It was only the few, 



VI. Dickens's " Oliver twist." 91 

the very few, who could rise to the height of 
the thought of humanity and see in them the 
man, without regard to the religion which had 
been taught by churchmen to have outlived its 
usefulness and to have been clung to with an ob- 
stinacy that was reprehensible. But six years 
before the publication of this novel, in spite of 
the most strenuous efforts of Robert Grant, 
Macaulay, and their confreres of the Liberal or 
Whig party, it was found impossible to have a 
bill granting full emancipation to the Jews 
passed in Parliament. In the country beyond the 
cities, into which the Jews had not yet pene- 
trated, we may be sure that the most grotesque 
opinions concerning them were entertained. A 
work such as this, which was read every- where 
and by every body, could not fail, therefore, in 
deepening the unfavorable impression, for the 
mass of the people think not deeply ; they are 
swayed by sentiments and prejudices, which, 
deep-rooted, are long in being eradicated. The 
influence for evil was, without doubt, incalcula- 
ble, for the villain was a Jew, and, if one were 
such, it was concluded that all were. 

The world still deemed the Jews capable of 
the greatest crimes, for it was but three years 
after this book was written that the terrible Da- 
mascus affair took place, in 1840, and there were 
many in Europe who believed the story that the 
Jews had murdered the monk, Father Thomas, 
to use his blood at the Passover Feast (for, in 



92 THE JEW 'IS ENGLISH FICTION. 

ignorant communities, tlie same terrible accusa- 
tion still finds credence; it is only a few years 
back that the world was startled by a like pro- 
ceeding in Hungary, after the falsity of the 
charge had been proven again and again). Even 
some European consuls, stationed in the Levant 
at that time, instead of using their influence to 
give the unfounded accusations the lie, fanned 
the popular fury and fanaticism. So, then, when 
people were still capable of listening to and ac- 
cepting as true such charges against these un- 
happy people, every portrayal that set forth even 
one mentioned as of their number as wicked, 
could not but weigh them still lower to the ground. 
Truly, in 1837, when this novel was published, 
there was not much enlightenment on the sub- 
ject of Jews and Judaism, and every popular de- 
traction but strengthened the wrong opinion. 
It is my aim to correct the false impressions con- 
cerning the Jews and Jewish history and life, 
that had been spread by these works. There 
are dark sides as well as light, and if they have 
been correctly portrayed I am ever ready and 
willing to acknowledge them also as true. But 
Fagin, it can not be my purpose to justify nor 
to apologize for; except in name, he is no Jew; 
he is a villainous criminal, that is all. It is un- 
just to append the appellation Jev7 to such as 
Eagin and his like, even if in life there should 
be those of his vile character who chance to 
have been born in the Jewish religion. 



VI. DICKENS'S "OLIVER TWIST." 93 

Strange it is, at best, that Charles Dickens, 
who, of all fictionists, contributed the most 
toward reforming social abuses, should, in this 
one instance, have joined the vulgar cry, and 
marked his worst character as a Jew. Knowing 
what we do of his works, we should rather 
have looked for the opposite. Here was an ex- 
cellent opportunity for a lashing of false opinions 
and abuses of society. Here were people who, 
through no fault of their own, were abused and 
pressed down, were denied political rights, and 
could not sit in either house. A call upon the 
English nation to amend these wrongs would 
have sounded more consistent with the whole 
course of this novelist, than this evidence of par- 
ticipation in the popular sentiment. His other 
criminals are designated by name, not by religion 
nor by sect. 

I may be pardoned if I digress for a short 
space and allude to an abuse so nearly allied to 
this error of the novelist, that it will not be out of 
place to mention it here. Unfortunately, there are 
criminals and wrong-doers of the Jewish relig- 
ion. At times it is found necessary to place them 
behind prison bars, and then we have the delec- 
table experience of being informed by the news- 
papers, following the example of the novelist, 
that !N". iN"., a Hebrew, or Jew, was convicted of 
theft or some other crime. In statistics of re- 
formatories and houses of refuge, I have al- 
ready seen it mentioned that two, or three, or 



94 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

four, or how great the number might be, of the 
inmates were Jews, and in vain have I looked 
for a statement of the religion of the remainder. 
If this is not done with intent, which I will be 
charitable enough to suppose it is not, it proves 
at least that that for which the Jews are so 
strenuously striving, not to be distinguished as 
Jews except in the religious sense, has not yet 
fully dawned upon the community. 

Had, two thousand years ago, an Israelite been 
apprehended in Phoenicia, a neighboring country 
to Palestine, as a criminal, and the Phoenician 
account had informed the public that Eliezer ben 
Jacob, an Israelite, had been convicted of theft, 
that had been perfectly proper, for the Israelites 
were then still a nation ; but now, when all Jew- 
ish national distinctions are lost, such invidious 
mentions are wrong and unjust. As Fagin 
stands on a level with Sykes, and the religion of 
neither can be blamed for such characters — since 
in all such instances the teachings of religion 
have been neglected and the evil in man been 
permitted to take the upper hand — so let our 
notice of this novel accomplish at least this much, 
that it gives us occasion to insist again on so 
much justice being done, that no wrong-doers be 
thrust upon public notice as of this faith, unless 
the practice become universal of mentioning the 
criminal's religion opposite his name. Fagin be- 
longs to the Barabbas class of Jewish portrayals. 
It looks as if the author had made a study of the 



VI. Dickens's " Oliver twist." 95 

criminal classes, and tacked on the name of 
Jew. What his motive was we have not been 
able to discover ; if this was his opinion of the 
Jews, he must have modified it considerably 
in later life, as we shall soon see. To me it 
appears that Dickens did not intend to do an 
injustice to the Jews; he drew this character 
in as strong a manner as he could, and named 
him a Jew individually without considering that 
it would react to the detriment of all of that 
religion. Unfortunate it is that the character 
was designated a Jew, for I consider this a 
blot on the otherwise fair fame of the great fic- 
tionist, as it is the one instance in his works 
wherein harm ensued from his writings. But 
this must be said for him, that if the novel is 
read carefully, it will be seen that he draws a 
Jew, not the Jew ; that is, one man, not the type — 
for nowhere can an expression be found that he 
considered the evil qualities of Fagin, Jewish 
qualities. Well had it been had this been so un- 
derstood by all his readers ; but, unfortunately, as 
so many of Dickens's characters have been taken 
as types, such as Squeers, Micawber, Mrs. Gamp, 
so was this looked upon as typical, and another 
inimical element aroused for the Jew to combat. 
As if conscious that he had been guilty of a great 
injustice, the novelist, in the last complete work 
that he wrote, " Our Mutual Friend," seems to 
atone for this wrong committed in his youth^ 



96 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

and we therefore leave the dark picture of Fagin 
to turn to a figure all light — Riah, the Jew in 
this other work. 

The whole tone of the novelist, when speak- 
ing of or treating this character, sounds apolo- 
getic ; he goes to the almost opposite extreme, 
and Riah is well nigh impossihly good ; he has 
no evil traits, he is kind, gentle, compassionate, 
grateful, humhle, long-suffering in misfortune; 
he accepts his hard lot without murmuring ; he 
is misunderstood, considered a villain, a stony- 
hearted creditor, and yet this remarkable old 
man hears the stings of outrageous fortune with 
an equanimity worthy of the Stoic philosophers. 
What impresses us as still more peculiar, is that 
whenever Riah evinces a trait especially beau- 
tiful we are told that this is characteristic of his 
people, as though the novelist wished to say : 
" The Jews are not as black as I painted Fagin \ 
they have many praiseworthy qualities, as 
evinced by this fine old man, who shows such 
nobility and elevation of character amid such 
distressing surroundings." Thus they stand — 
Fagin, the Jew of Dickens's youth, and Riah, he 
of his later years. Was it experience that 
taught him better? Had he met with such 
whose characters and doings impelled him to 
the thought that he had done a wrong in naming 
one of his blackest creations a Jew ? Is Riah a 
set-off to Fagin, an apology? I can not but 
think so. A later judgment must always be 



VI. Dickens's "our mutual friend." 97 

supposed to subvert an earlier one, and we are 
justified in concluding that Dickens's opinion 
of the Jews underwent a complete change, as 
we may learn from this novel, which may be 
regarded in a manner as his literary last will and 
testament. As the personage of Riah is not the 
most prominent in the tale, and as his charac- 
teristics may not have thoroughly impressed 
themselves on the minds of all, it may be well, 
especially as it can be done briefly, to state 
the striking features of the presentation, before 
giving an estimate of the truthfulness of the 
picture. 

This admirable old man is in the power of a 
young villain, who draws all the profits from a 
disgraceful, grinding business, while the Jew is 
the ostensible, hard-hearted owner who will show 
no mercy. This false position he unmurmur- 
ingly fills, for the father of the young scamp 
had done him kindness, and had in a manner 
intrusted the welfare of the youth to him. He 
therefore feels it his duty to aid the son, even 
when such aid necessitates him to engage in 
so disreputable an occupation. This Master 
Fledgely reviles him, mocks him, rails at him ; 
he receives it all with bent head and hands 
stretched out downward as if to deprecate the 
wrath of a superior. Il^ot one word of anger 
escapes him, not one accent of wrath. With all 
his shabbiness there is something that attracts 
the notice of those about him. He looks not 



98 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

mean ; his words, the few that he utters, are im- 
pressive. Notwithstanding the comparatively 
small part he plays he is the most beautiful 
character of the whole novel; so strange, so 
peculiar, almost like another patriach forced by 
circumstances into a false position. His first 
words are weighty: "Your people need speak 
truth sometimes, for they lie enough," is said to 
him, and he goes not into a long extenuation ; he 
merely parries by a keen counter thrust : " Sir, 
there is too much untruth among all denomina- 
tions of men," and immediately thereupon when 
his master, knowing the true state of affairs, that 
Riah, to whom he pays but a pittance as his 
weekly salary, is very poor and he is rich, asks : 
" Who but you and I ever heard of a poor Jew ?" 
he answers : " The Jews. They hear of poor 
Jews often and are very good to them." This is 
one of the instances in which the novelist speaks 
so kindly of those whom he felt that in an ear- 
lier day he had wronged. About that which he 
says it is unnecessary to speak here further ; in 
another place I have abundantly shown the 
great mistake of continually flaunting to the 
world the wealth of the Jews, which has aroused 
much of the envy and ill-feeling felt toward 
them, and much of the anti-semitism open and 
above board throughout European countries; 
there is so much poverty among them that 
the thousand and one benevolent associations 
with all the money at their command, can 



VI. Dickens's " our mutual friend." 99 

not do more tlian even slightly ameliorate the 
misery of their poor. The Jewish poor seek not 
relief elsewhere. The principle of charity is so 
closely connected with the religion that among 
them one and the same word is used to express 
righteousness and charity. Therefore, when a 
few weeks ago at a public meeting of the Poor 
Association of this city, one of the speakers 
cited as a striking fact that very few Hebrews 
sought relief from the association, the reason 
for this is not that there are not sufficient who 
seek relief, nor that they are all rich, but that 
within their own religion the better situated 
lend a hand to their needy brethren. 

The world learns not of the great poverty and 
suffering among them. Statistics show that 
there is proportionately no more, yes, that there 
is less, wealth among them than among other 
denominations. 

Again the writer tells us that even for the pit- 
tance that Riah receives from his master he is 
grateful, and parenthetically remarks that in his 
race gratitude is strong and enduring. When- 
ever Riah appears it is always to advantage ; he 
has a sad, sweet, benevolent smile ; his actions 
are all those of kindness. 

Gentleness, humility, are the terms wherein he 
is usually spoken of. He looks more like some 
superior creature benignantly blessing Mr. 
Fledgely, his master, than a poor dependent 
upon whom this one has set his foot. 



100 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

But one more trait, and I will have done 
with quoting his excellencies. Being forced to 
assume the false position, so at variance with his 
true self, before others, and being especially down- 
cast when in the presence of a friend who knew 
him as himself, he appeared as the merciless 
grinder, Eiah determined to leave this degrading 
service. The reasons he gives may be summed up 
in one sentence, viz : the fact of all the Jews be- 
ing blamed because of his seeming wrong-doing. 
Dickens, through Riah, states this strongly. It 
only proves again that to which I referred be- 
fore, that he intended by this character to pre- 
sent not only a man with beautiful traits, but 
wished to be in some manner a corrector of 
Wrong impressions concerning the co-religionists 
of Riah. 

Beautiful as is the character, and all honor 
that it does the novelist, there is a grave objec- 
tion to it, and that is, the character is too beau- 
tiful, too unreal. If the portrayal of Fagin sins 
on the one side, that of Riah sins on the other. 
He is faultless; he is more than human. 'No 
man could have endured so sweetly, gently, and 
quietly that position ; no man, rather than rap 
at the door at nine in the morning for fear of 
disturbing the inmate, would have sat down in 
the cold for an hour, and only rapped when he 
was almost freezing ; that is a little beyond hu- 
man nature. No man, who is not a hypocrite, 



VI. Dickens's " our mutual friend." 101 

as which, surely it was not meant to represent 
Riah, would consider his master beneficent, who 
paid him a few shillings and pocketed the large 
earnings, and for this would he so grateful as to 
kiss the hem of his garment; the humility which 
he displays would pass with some as worthy of 
all praise ; to us it appears too unnatural, too 
impossible. 

Riah is as little the picture of the Jew as 
Fagin is; he gives utterance to some words 
about the Jews which are true enough, but he 
can not stand as a representative of the Jews. 
If they are to be characters in fiction, they wish 
but justice, and no more. An advocate who 
gives a rose-colored account of his client will 
not be believed. The Jew has his faults as all 
men have. There is as much harm in overesti- 
mating as in undervaluing. A constant flow of 
praise loses all strength for an impartial mind, 
as does also a constant flow of abuse. We have 
in fiction demoniacally bad Jews, and ideally 
good ones. Barabbas and Fagin on the one 
hand, Sheva, Rebecca, and Riah on the other. 
In the works we have treated thus far, the true 
picture has not yet been given ; it will only be 
drawn by such a one who has made a searching 
and psychological study of the religious and 
hereditary traits of the descendants of this most 
remarkable stock. So many influences and 
agencies have combined in the formation of the 
historical Jewish character that it requires a 



102 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

keen and observant mind, indeed, to separate 
it into its elements. In its wanderings it has 
acquired much. What is original, what is ac- 
quired; what is Jewish, what cosmopolitan? 
It is no easy task. It requires a feat of mental 
analysis, and the preparation necessary is very 
great — more probably than any fictionist can 
give it. 

A figure such as Riah, although a beautiful 
creation, does not conduce to an appreciation or 
dissemination of the truth. After reading the 
book and pondering on the character, the 
thought will at once occur that no man, Jew or 
any other, is cast in so perfect a mold ; exagger- 
ation never serves its purpose, especially when 
on the side of the exceedingly good. Both these 
characters of Dickens are open to the same seri- 
ous objection, they are not truthful; the one a 
mere villain, with no redeeming qualities, the 
other a fine spirit, without any dross; neither 
Jewish, except in name, for they stand not as 
representing in any way their religion. It is 
abundantly evident that the Jewish character 
was little studied ; the presentation of Riah re- 
minds us of some sweets that are given a patient 
after he has swallowed a very bitter dose. As 
little as the Jew wishes to be judged by the vil- 
lain in " Oliver Twist," so little asks he to be 
measured by the benevolent old man in "Our 
Mutual Friend." 



VI. Dickens's " our mutual friend." 103 

Note. — About forty years ago, several letters 
passed between Dickens and a Jewess relative to 
the subject treated in this chapter. I am indebted 
to Mr. Max J. Kohler, of New York, for having 
called my attention to these well-nigh forgotten 
letters. They are of more than passing interest, 
for they substantiate the hypothesis advanced in 
this chapter, viz., that Riah was drawn as an 
apology for Fagin. The letters are as follows : 

(LETTER 1.) 

June 22, 1868. 

Dear Sir — I venture to address you on a subject 
in which ^I am greatly interested. . . . But 
there are other oppressions much heavier, other 
stings far sharper, than the fetters and goads of 
Damascus, Lebanon or Russia. 

In this country, where the liberty of the subject 
is fully recognized, where the law knows no dis- 
tinction of creed, the pen of the novelist, the gibe 
of the pamphleteer is still whetted against the 
sons of Israel. It has been said that Charles 
Dickens, the large-hearted, whose works plead so 
eloquently for the oppressed of his country, has 
encouraged a vile prejudice against the despised 
Hebrew. We have lived to see the day when 
Shakespeare's Shylock receives a very different 
rendering to that which was given to it fifty years 
ago. The great master has at last found an ex- 
ponent. Fagin, I fear, admits of only one inter- 
pretation. But Charles Dickens lives. The author 
can justify himself or atone for a great wrong on 
a whole scattered nation. 

Again apologizing for intruding so long on your 
valuable time, I remain, dear sir, faithfully and 
sincerely yours, E. 

To Charles Dickens. 



104 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 



(REPLY TO LETTER 1.) 

Friday, 10 July, 1863. 
. Dear Madam — I hope you will excuse this tardy 
reply to your letter. It is often impossible for me 
by any means to keep pace with my correspondents. 
I beg leave to say that if there be any general 
feeling on the part of the intelligent Jewish people 
that I have done them what you describe as a 
*'great wrong," they are a far less sensible, a far 
less just, and a far less good tempered people than 
I have always supposed them to be. Fagin, in 
"Oliver Twist," is a Jew because it unfortunately 
was true of the time to which that story refers that 
that class of criminals almost invariably was a 
Jew. But surely no sensible man or woman of 
your persuasion can fail to observe — firstly, that 
all the rest of the wicked dramatis personae are 
Christians; and, secondly, that he is called the 
"Jew" not because of his religion, but because of 
his race. If I were to write a story in which I de- 
scribed a Frenchman or a Spaniard as the "Roman 
Catholic," I should do a very indecent and un- 
justifiable thing; but I make mention of Fagin 
as the Jew because he is one of the Jewish people, 
and because it conveys that kindly idea of him 
which I should give my readers of a Chinaman by 
calling him a "Chinese." 

The inclosed is quite a nominal subscription 
toward the good object in which you are interested ; 
but I hope it may serve to show you that I have no 
feeling toward the Jewish people but a friendly 
one. I always speak well of them, whether in 
public or private, and bear testimony (as I ought 
to do) to their perfect good faith in other transac- 
tions as I have ever had with them ; and in my 
"Child's History of England," I have lost no op- 



VI. Dickens's "our mutual friend." 105 

portunity of setting forth their cruel persecution 
in old times. 

Dear madame, faithfully yours, 

Charles Dickens. 

(LETTER 2.) 

July 14, 1863. 

Dear Sir — Pray receive my best thanks for your 
kind letter and its inclosure. I have a great dis- 
like to making myself troublesome, yet trust you 
will pardon my venturing a few words on the Jew- 
ish character. Is it a fact that the Jewish race 
and religion are inseparable? If a Jew embrace 
any other faith, he is no longer known as one of 
the race, either to his own people or to the Gentiles 
to whom he may have joined himself. Does any- 
one designate Mr. Disraeli as the Jew? I cannot 
dispute the fact that at the time to which "Oliver 
Twist" refers there were some Jew receivers of 
stolen goods ; and although, in my own mind, it is 
a distinction without a difference, I do not think 
that it could at all be proved that there was one 
so base as to train young thieves in the manner 
described in that work. If, as you remark, "all 
must observe that the other criminal character 
were Christians," they are at least contrasted with 
characters of good Christians ; this poor, wretched 
Fagin stands alone — the Jew. 

How grateful we are to Sir Walter Scott and Mrs. 
S. C. Hall for their delineations of some of our 
race ; yet Isaac of York was not all virtue. I hope 
we shall not forfeit your opinion of our sense and 
good temper — perhaps we are oversensitive ; but 
are we not overflayed? Are we not constantly irri- 
tated by the small gnats who may fret us, yet are 
in themselves too insignificant to be annihilated? 
It is only when a great mind appears to be against 
us that we plaintively appeal. 



106 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

We dwell in this country very little known ; our 
domestic customs entirely unknown. I have my- 
self been greatly astonished at the ignorance of 
my countrymen in general concerning what they 
appear to think an entirely foreign people. Look 
at the blood accusations from time to time rising 
against us — even such a popular paper as "Cham- 
bers' " disseminating that calumny. I hazard the 
opinion that it would well repay an author of 
reputation to examine more closely into the man- 
ners and character of the British Jews, and to 
represent them as they really are — "Nothing ex- 
tenuate, nor aught set down in malice." 

I remain, dear, sir, yours, etc. 

To Charles Dickens, Esq. 

The reply to the letter of the 14th of July, 
1863, was the character of Riah, in "Our Mutual 
Friend." Riah was open to criticism, which the 
writer addressed to Mr. Dickens, and she received 
the following reply : 

Wednesday, Nov. 16, 1864. 

Dear Madame — I have received your letter with 
great pleasure, and hope to be (as I have always 
been in heart) the best of friends with the Jewish 
people. The error you point out to me had oc- 
curred to me, as most errors do to most people, 
when it was too late to correct it. But it will do 
no harm. The peculiarities of dress and manner 
are fused together for the sake of picturesqueness. 

Dear madame, faithfully yours, 

Charles Dickens. 



VII. " CONINGSBY '' AND " TANCRED." 107 



Vn, DISRAELrS "COlSriKaSBY" ajstd 
" TANCRED." 

Benjamin Disraeli was descended from an old 
Jewish family. His father, Isaac, the author 
of " The Curiosities of Literature," and other 
works, had some misunderstanding with the 
trustees of the synagogue, left it,^ and had his 
son Benjamin baptized in the Christian church 
at the age of twelve years. The son was brill- 
iant and ambitious, and was determined to 
make his way in the world. He was nominally a 
Christian, therefore the civil disabilities under 
which the Jews labored did not stand in his way. 
After many failures, he at last succeeded in hav- 
ing himself elected to Parliament. The fact of 
his having been born a Jew was often cast up to 
him, and he might expect the same in the future. 
With characteristic boldness he did not, as many 
another would have done, attempt to shield him- 
self from this charge by pointing to the fact 
that he was now a Christian, and repudiating all 
connection with the Jews, but he took up the 
gauntlet, turned upon the haughty English aris- 
tocrats, and in several works set himself to the 
task of proving that he was descended from the 
true nobility of the earth, that in comparison 
with the splendor and length of his lineage, the 



108 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

oldest English families were but as of yesterday. 
He wished to show that he was proud of his de- 
scent from a race which, ^' scattered, banished, 
plundered, and humiliated for thousands of years 
by Egyptian Pharaohs, Assyrian kings, Eoman 
Emperors, Scandinavian crusaders, Gothic chiefs, 
and holy inquisitors, had still held their own, had 
kept their race pure, and remained to this day 
irrepressible, inexhaustible, indispensable, full 
of energy and genius." Disraeli had adopted 
the novel as the medium for the communication 
of his ideas. His ideas and thoughts of the 
Jews, their past, their present, he laid down in 
two works of fiction, *' Coningsby " and ^' Tan- 
cred," and in a chapter of his biography of 
Lord George Bentinck. These must be taken 
together; '' Tancred " is a continuation of " Con- 
ingsby," and in the biography the ideas expressed 
in " Tancred" are in a great measure reproduced. 
In these novels we have to do not so much with 
individual characters (as in the works we have 
thus far treated) as with an idea which is stated, 
repeated, proved, strengthened, enforced by ex- 
ample. I can not take time to review the plots 
of these novels. The plots here, at best, are 
only minor; the novels were written with a 
purpose, and this purpose I will concern our- 
selves with at once. Disraeli is a shining excep- 
tion to but too many, if not all, of the class of 
" converted Jews," whose every eflbrt it is to 
hide their origin ; to him the Jewish race was 



VII. " CONINGSBT " AND " TANCRED." 109 

"the oldest of unmixed blood," and therefore it 
could not be exterminated. 

" Mixed races may persecute and oppress ; they 
may have temporary power, but in the end they 
must disappear, while the pure race, trampled 
upon, oppressed, humiliated, will ever arise in 
its power and live on while others die out." This 
race idea forms the groundwork of the Jewish 
portions of these works. The exponent of these 
ideas in ^^Coningsby" is Sidonia, a grand, mys- 
terious figure, descended from one of those fam- 
ilies which, in Spain, pretended to be Catholics 
while they were secretly Jews, one of those 
wonderful IsTew- Christian families, members of 
which rose to the highest dignities in Church 
and State. Proud is Sidonia of this descent; 
wealthy as the Rothschilds, a power in every 
European court, versed in the wisdom of all 
ages and all lands, but with all this wisdom, 
power, and wealth not a citizen of his native 
land, for the civil disabilities of the Jews had 
not yet been removed. The anomaly of the 
position of the Jews, for whose full emancipa- 
tion Disraeli was working, is kere well brought 
out. All Sidonia's expressions tend to one 
point — intense pride in his race and his religion. 
He is " of that faith that the apostles professed 
before they followed their Master." And for 
that race and that faith Disraeli wishes to speak 
a mighty word. The Goths persecuted the 
Jews in Spain ; where are they so cruel and so 



110 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

haughty ? Despised suppliants to that very race 
which they banished, for some miserable por- 
tion of the treasure which their habits of indus- 
try have again accumulated. Where is Spain ? 
Fallen, degraded, while the race which it ex- 
pelled is more prosperous than ever. It existed 
from time far back; it exists to-day; it will 
exist on. 

" The Christendom which thou hast quitted," 
says the spirit of Arabia to Tancred, "was a 
savage forest, while the cedars of Lebanon for 
countless ages had built the palaces of mighty 
kings." Here it is that Disraeli brings out his 
theory of race. Race is every thing ; nationality 
is only intermediate. The individual is great, 
because he combines in himself all the great 
qualities of the race. He tells his readers, as it 
were : Hear ye, ye who look down upon and de- A | 
spise the Hebrew race, ye who taunt me as 
being descended from it, it of all races is un- 
mixed ; it is the most ancient if not the only 
unmixed race that dwells in cities. Is it not 
marvelous that it has not disappeared ? It has 
defied exile, massacre, spoliation ; it has defied 
Time. It has been expatriated, but this has 
been one of the reasons of its endurance. If you 
wish to make a race endure, expatriate them. 
Conquer them, and they may blend with their 
conquerors ; exile them and they will live apart 
forever. 

Disraeli is so taken up with this idea of the 



VII. " CONINGSBY " AND " TANCRED." Ill 

purity of race that he permits it to quite dom- 
inate him. He was so ardent in his desire to 
make good his claim to superiority of birth to 
those about him, that he looked at but one side 
of the matter. In summing up the excellencies 
of the Jewish race, our author falls into exag- 
geration. All the great names he mentions as 
Jews is but characteristic of a tendency among 
all the fervent advocates of the superiority of the 
Jews to make every thing noteworthy Jewish. 
He finds Jewish blood in the veins of a Mozart, 
a Eossini, of all the great singers ; he tells us that 
in all the cabinets of Europe Jews are among 
the leading diplomats ; he even goes so far as to 
suppose that li^apoleon had Jewish blood cours- 
ing through him. Flattering as all this is to the 
vanity of Jews, and proud as they must be of 
their great men, yet this claiming of great men 
as Jews without absolute proof has a pernicious 
tendency. 

It is not championing the Jews, if champion- 
ing they need, to cite these few names when so 
many can be mentioned as controverting this. 
The great man belongs to the world, and he is 
the result of world-influence ; only when he is 
great as a teacher of religion, or in some branch 
in which religious influences tell, is it due to his 
birth as Jew or Christian, for early religious in- 
fluences mold him ; but greatness in other re- 
gards depends not specially hereon. 

But Disraeli is treading on safer and surer 



112 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

ground when lie speaks of the wonderful influ- 
ence of the Jews from past days on Europe, 
when he fervently exclaims that in his day 
the Hebrew child enters upon adolescence only 
to learn that he is the Pariah of that un- 
grateful Europe that owes to him the best 
part of its laws, a fine portion of its literature, 
all its religion. Modern Europe has been civ- 
ilized by two little nations, those of the Jordan 
and the Ilyssus. An Arabian tribe, the Jew- 
ish, an ^gean clan, the Grecian, have been 
the promulgators of our knowledge. The in- 
fluence of and the debt to the Hebrews of the 
world is enormous. The life and property of 
England are protected by the laws of Sinai. The 
hard-working people are secured in every seven 
a day of rest by the laws of Sinai. And yet 
they persecute the Jews and hold up to odium 
the race to whom they are indebted for the sub- 
lime legislation which alleviates the inevitable 
lot of the laboring multitude. The most popu- 
lar poet in England is not Wordsworth nor 
Byron, not even Shakespeare; it is the sweet 
singer of Israel. Independently of their ad- 
mirable laws, which have elevated our condition, 
and of their exquisite poetry, which has charmed 
it ; independently of their heroic history, which 
has animated us to the pursuit of public liberty, 
we are indebted to the Hebrew people for our 
knowledge of the true God. And of this influ- 
ence he calls out grandly in one place : " Sons of 



VII. " CONINGSBY " AND " TANCRED." 113 

Israel, when you recollect that you created 
Christendom, you may pardon the Christians 
even their Autos-da-fe." 

But the chief object of these writings, apart 
from showing the influence of Jews on European 
thought, the absurdity of denying full emanci- 
pation to those who have given the best in life 
and thought, and his race hobby, is to draw the 
relationship between Judaism and Christianity. 
Tancred goes to Asia for inspiration, to investi- 
gate the great Asian mystery; for from Asia 
alone great movements can go forth, since there 
alone the Divine influence rests, and there alone 
God spoke with man. The narrowness and fal- 
lacy of this conception I shall notice later on. 
In Bethany Tancred meets with Eva, the Jew- 
ess, and, from their conversation, as well as 
from the chapter in the biography of Bentinck, 
which I mentioned before, we gather his thoughts 
of the relationship of the two religions. Chris- 
tianity is Judaism for the multitude. Chris- 
tianity is an outcome of Judaism, and when the 
Christians reflect that the teachings of Jesus are 
founded on those of Moses, surely gratitude, if 
nothing else, should prevent them from further 
oppressing and humiliating those who gave them 
a God and a religion. The first question that 
Eva asks Tancred when she learns that he is a 
Christian, is whether he belongs to those Franks 
who worship a Jewess, or to those who break 
her images and do not bow down to the mother 



114 THE JEW m ENGLISH FICTION. 

of Jesus, but worship the son of Mary, likewise 
a Jew. And when he tells her that the Christian 
Church will teach her what true Christianity is, 
she asks which, and enumerates the dozen differ- 
ent churches, all of which differ, and concludes 
that it is wise " to remain within the pale of a 
church which is older than all of them, the 
church in which Jesus was born, and which he 
never quitted." He who diffused Christianity 
among the nations was not a senator of Rome 
nor a philosopher of Athens, but Paul, a Jew of 
Tarsus, who founded the seven churches of Asia. 
And that greater church, great even amid its 
terrible corruptions, that has avenged the victory 
of Titus by subjugating the capital of the Caesars, 
and has changed every one of the Olympian tem- 
ples into altars of the God of Sinai and of Cal- 
vary, was founded by another Jew, a Jew of 
Galilee. Thus would he show that all the great- 
ness of the Christian Church is due to Jews, and 
had it- not been for them Christianity would 
never have arisen ; its morality is all founded on 
the morality of the Jewish religion. "When 
the lawyer tempted Jesus, and inquired how he 
was to inherit eternal life, the Great Master of 
Galilee referred him to the writings of Moses. 
There he would find recorded the whole duty 
of man ; to love God with all his heart and soul 
and strength and mind, and his neighbor as 
himself. These two principles are embodied in 
the writings of Moses, and are the essence of 



vn. "coningsby" and "tancred." 115 

Christian morals." But there is a great fallacy 
in regard to the Jews, which Disraelli felt him- 
self called upon to contradict, the fallacy which 
originated the conception of the "Wandering 
Jew," and he makes Eva ask Tancred: "You 
think the present state of my race penal and 
miraculous?" And when Tancred answers in 
the affirmative, and gives as his reason " that it 
is a punishment ordained for the rejection and 
crucifixion of the Messiah" — the common 
Christian conception — Eva, in the name of the 
author, proceeds to disprove this prevalent 
thought. In a later book Disraeli repeats the 
argument in well nigh the same words, some- 
what as follows: This doctrine, that the dis- 
persion of the Jews throughout the world is a 
punishment because Jesus was crucified, a doc- 
trine still held by millions, he says is neither his- 
torically true nor dogmatically sound. It is not 
historically true, because at the time of Jesus' 
death, the Jews had for centuries been scattered 
all over the then civilized world, from Western 
Europe to Eastern Asia, in Home, in Alexandria, 
in Antioch, in Parthia, and, therefore, their dis- 
persion could not have resulted from the fact 
that they did not receive Jesus as the Messiah. 
It is not dogmatically sound, because no pas- 
sage in the sacred writings warrants, in the 
slightest degree, the penal assumption. The 
words of the mob, " His blood be upon us and 
our children," cited by Matthew, are, at times, 



116 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

strangely quoted as tlie justification for the be- 
lief. The criminals said that, not the judge. 
'' Is it a principle of your jurisprudence to per- 
mit the guilty to assign their own punishment ? 
Why should that transfer any of the infliction 
to their posterity? What evidence have you 
that Omnipotence accepted the offer ? He whom 
you acknowledge as omnipotent, prayed to Je- 
hovah to forgive them, on account of their ig- 
norance. But, admit that the offer was ac- 
cepted, which, in my opinion, is blasphemy, is 
the cry of a rabble at a public execution to bind 
a nation ? What had the thousands who were 
not near nor present to do with the crucifixion ?" 
In this strain Eva continues, and, as the last 
word of the conversation says : " We have some 
conclusions in common. We agree that half 
Christendom worships a Jewess, and the other 
half a Jew. Now, let me ask you one more 
question. Which do you think should be the 
superior race, the worshiped or the worship- 
ers?" 

I have given at some length Disraeli's words. 
He felt it necessary to be thus somewhat apolo- 
getic. It was the time that the question of the 
emancipation of the Jews was being agitated 
and the good feeling had to be fostered ; it was 
the time, too, that but a few years before the 
whole of Europe had been stirred by the Damas- 
cus and Rhodes affair, to which I referred in the 
last chapter, when the old lie and calumny, the 



Vn. " CONIKGSBY " AND " TANCRED." 117 

cause of so mucli misery, had been trumped up, 
that Jews had killed Christians to use their 
blood at their Passover; not only the fanatics 
of Asia but even Europeans gave credence, and 
the unfortunates were persecuted and murdered, 
BO that the nineteenth century seemed to have 
been transformed into the sixteenth. The Jew- 
ish blood that flowed in Disraeli's veins was fired, 
and he wrote this vindication, serving thus three 
purposes : first, to show that he belonged to the 
oldest nobility of the world, and that when his 
enemies belittled him because he was a Jew it 
was theirs to keep silent, for his ancestors had 
dwelt in palaces when theirs had roamed about 
in the forests, companions of the wild beasts ; 
secondly, to speak a word in favor of full eman- 
cipation by dispelling the prevalent thought 
that the condition of the Jews was due to Di- 
vine wrath ; thirdly, to preach his doctrine of 
the superiority of pure race and blood. 

It is not my object now to go into any discus- 
sion of the relative merits of Judaism and Chris- 
tianity, but this much may be said in regard to 
Disraeli's eflbrt to offer reasons why Christians' 
opinions are unjust, that all apologetics of this 
kind are unscientific ; they base upon a false 
theological conception; the true position and 
condition of affairs in Judea at the time of 
Christ must be understood before any argu- 
ments can be brought forth. This is neither 
the time nor opportunity to present this pic- 



118 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

ture, which I hope to do at some future day. 
In this, however, the author was correct, that 
the whole usually accepted Christian thought 
on this subject is distorted and perverted; it 
understands not Judaism of that time nor of to- 
day; it understands not the rise or origin of 
Christianity ; that it was a mixture of Judaism 
and Paganism ; " a Judaism for the masses," as 
our author well says ; that Paul, and not Jesus, 
is the real founder of Christianity. Disraeli, 
being a Christian in outward form at least, views 
Calvary as the grand closing scene of the divine 
drama begun on Sinai, and according to this has 
all his conceptions shaped. He merely takes the 
accepted theological interpretations for granted, 
and goes upon them. All honor to him, that in 
his rising power, at the time when they most 
needed the help of the great and the influential, 
he forgot not the stock from which he sprang. 
All honor to him, that even in the zenith of his 
glory, many years later, at the Congress of Ber- 
lin, which for the time settled the destinies of 
Europe, one of the points upon which he, as 
Premier of England, the head of Europe's proud- 
est aristocracy, insisted, was that Eoumania 
should and must grant equal rights to all, this 
having special reference to the Jews, who had 
there been so cruelly persecuted. 

There are several points, however, in which 
the conservative statesman permitted his opin- 
ions to be shaped by his political preferences. 



Vn. " CONINGSBY " AND " TANCRED." 119 

In one place he says : " The Jews are essentially 
Tories. Toryism is but copied from the mighty 
prototype which has fashioned Europe." And 
in another, " They are a living and the most 
striking evidence of the falsity of that pernicious 
doctrine of modern times — ^the natural equality 
of man. The native tendency of the Jewish 
race, who are justly proud of their blood, is 
against the doctrine of the equality of man. 
All the tendencies of the Jewish race are con- 
servative." The Jews of old, with their national 
surroundings, their narrow idea of being the 
chosen people, their looking down upon the 
heathen, were representatives of these ideas. 
Their descendants, however, have been trained 
for centuries in the bitter school of adversity, and 
though always on the side of order and govern- 
ment and quiet, it is with them we may say as 
with all others, some will be found in Con- 
servative, others in Liberal ranks; their opin- 
ions are due not to descent but to circumstances. 
In England, many Jews will be found leaning to 
the Conservative side; and, judging from his 
own surroundings, Disraeli was correct in his 
conclusions. In Germany, on the other hand, 
they are among the levelers, or, at least, the 
Liberals ; Heine, born in an earlier day ; Lasker, 
a Liberal leader in our time ; Marx and Lassalle, 
the apostles of Socialism. In France, the same 
phenomenon greets us. In Italy, they are on the 
side of freedom. So that as the same- fact has 



120 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

met us BO often before, their work and their po- 
sition, here, too, is due to the man and not the 
Jew. The Jews can not be classed altogether ; 
in one country they will act thus, in another 
thus; they are guided and governed as other 
men are. The Jews in this country are among 
the most outspoken opponents of Socialism ; in 
Russia, many will be found in the ranks of Nihil- 
ism; in England, they are mostly of the Monte- 
fiore stamp, rigidly conservative in religion, 
hence also in politics ; in Germany, they follow 
the wave of Liberal thought ; they are no longer 
one community ; to class them altogether is ab- 
surd. The same motives do not actuate them ; 
the same opinions do not sway them ; the old 
proverb, ^'All Israel are brethren," holds neither 
in politics nor in social considerations, in 
nothing but in their religion. Therefore is 
Disraeli exceedingly narrow and unapprecia- 
tive of the true position of the Jews when 
he classes them altogether in a passage like 
the following: "They may be traced in the 
last outbreak of the destructive principle in Eu- 
rope. An insurrection takes place against tra- 
dition and aristocracy, against religion and 
property. Destruction of the Semitic principle, 
extirpation of the Jewish religion, whether in 
the Mosaic or Christian form, the natural equal- 
ity of man and the abrogation of property, are 
proclaimed by the secret socities, who form pro- 
visional governments, and men of the Jewish 



vn. "coningsbt" and "tancred." 121 

race are found at the head of every one of them. 
The people of God co-operate with atheists, the 
most skillful accumulators of property ally them- 
selves with communists, the peculiar and chosen 
race touch the hand of all the scum and low 
castes of Europe ! And all this because they 
wish to destroy that ungrateful Christendom 
which owes to them even its name, and whose 
tyranny they can no longer endure." Here 
speaks the Eaglish aristocrat in sweeping terms, 
failing to make the vital distinction between Jew 
and Jew as he would between man and man. 
For centuries they have been reared among differ- 
ing influences, and these influences tell. Anglo- 
Saxon in England, Anglo-Saxon in E'orth Ger- 
many, Anglo-Saxon in America, for example, will 
not be judged by the same standards. They are 
now respectively English, German, and Ameri- 
can ; and so it is with the Jews, they, too, have 
mightily changed since they were all one nation 
in little Palestine. They are so no more. How 
difierent the ideas concerning this Jewish stock 
are among different thinkers ! With Disraeli 
they are Tories, born aristocrats, the strongest 
refutation of the doctrine of the equality of man. 
Let me quote another, who stands on quite a dif- 
ferent platform. We are told, "• It was from Judea 
that there arose the most persistent protests 
against inequality and the most ardent aspira- 
tions after justice that have ever raised human- 
ity out of the actual into the ideal. We feel 



122 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

the effect still. It is thence has come the leaven 
of revolution which still moves the world. Job 
saw evil triumphant, and yet believed in justice. 
Israel's prophets, while thundering against in- 
iquity, announced the good time coming." 
(Lavelaye, " Socialism of To-day," Introduction, 
XYI.) Both opinions are right, as applied to 
later Jews. There are aristocrats among them 
and Socialists, but, be it remembered, not as 
Jews. 

There is yet another conception in which Dis- 
raeli is exceedingly narrow. In a conversation 
with. Sidonia, Tancred says : " I have for a time 
suspected that inspiration is not only a divine, 
but a local quality," and Sidonia answers : " I 
believe that God spoke to Moses on Mount 
Horeb, and you believe that he was crucified in 
the person of Jesus on Mount Calvary. Both 
were children of Israel and spoke Hebrew to the 
Hebrews. The prophets were only Hebrews. 
The apostles were only Hebrews. It is a part 
of the divine scheme that its influence shall only 
be local." And therefore Tancred determines 
to visit Jerusalem to inhale some of that inspira- 
tion, which is denied to Europe and rests on the 
Eastern lands, where God's word came to man. 
He is told, when speaking of this same fact of 
the localism of inspiration with an Arab sheikh, 
" Be sure that God never spoke to any one but 
an Arab." How narrow a thought ! How con- 
tracted a mental vision ! What ! the inspiration 



vn. "coningsby'' and "tancred." 123 

from the Universal Spirit is confined to one 
little tract of land. What ! the inspiration from 
God was vested in but a few souls, and then died 
out never to appear among mankind again. !N'ot 
alone Tancred thought this, hut there are myr- 
iads who think that since the last of the prophets 
inspiration has disappeared from among men. 
Away with so distressing a thought ! Inspira- 
tion is not dead. Inspiration is confined to no 
time and to no clime. [N'ot the Hebrew prophets 
alone were inspired ; every man who has been 
blessed with the divine gift of genius has been 
inspired. No matter whether as poets or as 
philosophers, no matter whether as thinkers or 
as workers, the whole long list of the world's 
great men who have risen far above their fellow- 
men, whose minds had that quality which we 
call genius, and which we can not explain, have 
had the divine afflatus breathed into their souls. 
Yes, Isaiah was inspired, but so was also Socra- 
tes, and Plato, and Shakespeare, and Milton, and 
Newton, and Kant, and Goethe, and Schiller, 
though in a difierent sense ; there is a difierence 
of degree. 

Yes, as religious geniuses, Israel's prophets 
stand unapproached; three thousand years ago 
they uttered the truths to which mankind is but 
now gradually coming. But inspiration died 
not out with them. Inspiration is not local, in- 
spiration is not temporal ; from the frigid zones 
unto the tropics, from the beginning of time 



124 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

unto our day, which so many with Disraeli 
bewail as being so helplessly degenerate, God's 
voice is heard in the utterances of the choice 
ones of the earth. I^either Judaism, nor Chris- 
tianity, nor Mohammedanism, nor Buddhism, 
can lay claim exclusively to inspiration, as in 
former days each and every one did for itself; 
it belongs to man, and He from whom inspira- 
tion flows, is the God of humanity. J)israeli's 
fervent belief in race again led him astray here ; 
he speaks of the great Asian mystery, as if from 
Asia alone great movements can go forth, for 
only in Asia has God appeared. If any thing, 
Asia is dead ; it changes not ; it stands to-day 
where it did a thousand years ago. From the 
western lands new thoughts and impulses pro- 
ceed. Some grand Asiatic scheme always 
seemed to float before his mind. In ^' David 
Alroy," another Jewish novel, an Eastern rhap- 
sody, he hints it. In these novels he further 
speaks of an Asian movement; perhaps with 
this conception is connected his desire of nam- 
ing the Queen of England Empress of India, and 
his fulfillment of that desire. Perhaps he dreamt 
of some grand Asian Empire from which would 
go forth the impulse that would settle the dis- 
tracted state of Europe. 

Disraeli's conception of the Jews is what 
might naturally be expected from one who by 
inclination, by circumstance, by the natural bent 
of his mind, leant toward conservatism in thought 



vn. "coningsby'' and " tancred.*' 125 

and in action. To him they were the firm up- 
holders of tradition and stable principle. The 
reformed and liberal movement among them he 
did not appreciate ; he looked upon them as a 
race in contradistinction to their religion, in- 
stead of feeling that it is only as religious com- 
munities that they exist as Jews; but he was 
their ardent defender at the time when such 
defense was necessary. In this popular form 
he may have and he did open the eyes of many 
a Christian to truths, which, if they had been 
uttered at all, were buried in volumes which 
never reached the masses. He was himself a 
representative of the characteristics he gave to 
the Jews. The novels are one long panegyric 
of Jewish greatness and an appeal to the Chris- 
tians to stop and think of the relations between 
the two religions before they judge hastily. 

Judaism, however, looks higher than he por- 
trayed it. Freed from the shackles of national 
and political existence, above time and place, in 
its purity it expresses the thought of the One» 
the great I Am, universal and unconfined ; spir- 
ituality pure, it stands as the exponent of the 
magni:ficent conception of its prophet of old, the 
unity of mankind, the unity of God. 



126 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 



yni. GEORGE ELIOT'S "DANIEL DE- 
EONDA." 

I. 

The deepest thinker among English women, 
and one of the greatest of fictionists, toward 
the close of her author-career, wrote a novel 
which, for uniqueness of theme and treatment is 
interesting, for thought and reasoning is remark- 
able, for learning is striking. Other novels had 
been written with Jews as characters, but they 
were mostly superficial in conception ; this was 
the first by a non-Jewish writer that made 
Judaism a study. " Daniel Deronda " met 
with a varying reception at diflerent hands. 
The critics pronounced it a failure ; some ridi- 
culed, others called it weak ; the world read and 
did not understand. The subject was too un- 
known, too peculiar, too much out of the range 
of the common, to be perfectly, or even partially 
grasped. The novelist had taken a bold step. 
She had written an " epic in prose." The sub- 
ject was grand enough for any epic ; it dealt 
with large forces, with the questions of race and 
religion. " Daniel Deronda " is not George Eliot's 
most popular book, but it is her greatest and 
most matured. It was the last child of her 
genius, and it was worthy of, it overtopped its 
predecessors. 



Vni. GEORGE ELIOT's " DANIEL DERONDA/' 127 

The Jewish race, its restoration to Palestine, 
its taking its stand in the great commonwealth 
of nations, form the harden of the work. The 
suhject of race seemed to he a congenial one to 
her mind. Years hefore she had written a 
dramatic poem, " The Spanish Glypsy," and 
there the same ideal appears, the gathering of 
the* wandering Zingali trihes into one nation 
with their own land. Zarca is the Mordecai, 
Fedalma the Deronda. But the earlier work 
has not the power of the later. It appears only as 
the seed that oped and ripened into the full fruit 
of the novel. All her novels have a religious 
element, but in grandeur, power, and might, 
there is but one of her characters that can ap- 
proach the ideal conception of Mordecai, and 
that is the magnificent figure of Savanarola in 
Romola. 

A cursory reading of the novel will at once 
disclose the fact that it consists of two distinct 
portions; of the one, Gwendolen Harleth 
is the central figure, of the other Mordecai. 
Daniel Deronda is the binding link between the 
two parts. The former portion it lies not within 
my province to discuss ; I will turn at once to 
the other, the Jewish parts. 

The author did not approach her task without 
preparation. As before writing her novel, Ro- 
mola, she is said to have spent many a day in 
Florence studying and observing, frequenting 
the repositories of medieval art and learning, 



128 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

gaining a knowledge of time and place so that 
her novel stands as a monument to her industry 
and learning, and is authoritative for the period 
treated, so too, in preparation for the writing of 
Daniel Deronda, did she store her great mind 
with a knowledge of the Jewish past, and a 
keen observance of earlier Jewish customs. We 
are astonished at the exactitude of her state- 
ments ; there are but few errors, which can be 
readily condoned. She describes the observance 
of the Friday eve in the home. She takes us into 
a synagogue of Frankfort, and remarks upon the 
service there conducted ; she describes for us a 
marriage scene as it was, and tells us of the last 
words of the Jew before death — the confession 
of the Divine unity. We learn from her pages 
of that wonderful bit of autobiography of the 
Polish Jew, Solomon Maimon. She has delved 
into Jewish history, and we are carried along by 
the passionate recountal of the wrongs inflicted 
on the Jews, the sufferings and persecutions. 
Here and there a legend is told from the Jewish 
writings, the Talmud, or Midrash ; again we 
have a sentence that fell from the lips of a sage 
of old. That strange product of Jewish mys- 
ticism, the Kabbala, is referred to, and the divi- 
sion of Jews into Eabbanites and Karaites is 
cited. Jehudah Halevi's word, with which we 
have already met in her '' Spanish Gypsy," is 
again quoted, " the Jewish nation is the heart of 
the nations;" Ibn Ezra, too, is noticed. The 



Vni. GEORGE ELIOT'S " DANIEL DERONDA." 129 

great Jewisli thought is given expression to, 
that the unity of God presupposes the unity of 
mankind. There is, too, all the weight of 
thought necessary for so great a subject ; the 
same close reasoning, the same psychological 
analysis that characterized her earlier works, re- 
appear. She came to the task well equipped. 
How did she fulfill the task ? Does her presen- 
tation do justice to the thoughts and ideals of 
the Jews ? Did she correctly grasp the tendency 
of the Judaism of to-day ? Are the characters 
she presents as Jewish drawn from life, and do 
they evince a true knowledge of the develop- 
ment of the character ? 

The answers to these questions we must 
gather from a close study of the pages of the 
work. Most of these Jewish characters we can 
dismiss with a few words; two only, besides 
Mordecai, offer opportunity for larger treat- 
ment — Deronda and Mirah. The Cohen family, 
with whom Mordecai lodges, give to the tale the 
only humorous element, with the exception of 
the oddities of Hans Meyrick. It is a family 
such as you can meet any where in the large 
cities, a family of Jews made mach what they 
are by circumstances. The father, Ezra Cohen, 
is a brisk, prosperous merchant, embodying 
much of the old trading spirit, boastful of his 
success, proud of his business ; his son Jacob, 
with his trading propensities bids fair to become 
what his father is. The old mother carries, " be- 



130 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

neath a rough exterior, the affection that abides 
in Jewish hearts, as a sweet odor in things long 
crushed and hidden from the outer air." Ig- 
norant as the family is, commonplace as is their 
life, material as are their pursuits, they yet have 
something left of a traditional ideality. 

They give a home to Mordecai, the poor 
scholar, and with them he is welcome until the 
end. The sentiment, that learning shows superi- 
ority, and the involuntary regard for the learned 
man, however mean and lowly his exterior, so 
well brought out here, well attest the attitude 
of the Jews in the most troubled times in this 
matter. After country and temple were lost, 
the nobility that was recognized as occupying 
the first rank, was that of learning. The wise 
man was the most honored of the community. 
While for centuries, during the Dark Ages, the 
surrounding world was sunk in ignorance and 
the magic wand of superstition held all beneath 
its enslaving sway, the bright light of learning 
diffused its rays among the Jews, and ever after, 
even among the lowly and untaught of their 
number, there was kept alive this thought of 
the greatness of knowledge. There uncon- 
sciously reappears in this ignorant family this 
respect for learning and the feeling that there is 
blessing in having the scholar beneath the roof 
and at the board. There is expressed too in 
their language and dealings, though not so re- 



Vin. GEORGE ELIOT S " DANIEL DEBONDA." 131 

fined and cultured, something of the kindness 
of heart, a Jewish trait in all times. 

Deronda's mother, feeling what it was to have 
" a man's, force of genius, and yet to suffer the 
slavery of being a girl," not daring disobey her 
father, a man of iron will, repressed by all the 
legalism of the old Jewish life, to gain freedom 
broke loose from it, and determined that her son 
should be raised as an English Christian, not as 
a Jew; he should never know the restrictions 
and miseries she had experienced. She is but 
one of that great number who, in the earlier 
decades of this century, having no love for Ju- 
daism — seeing not its ideal side, feeling only that 
it prevented them at that time from pursuing 
a desired career, readily threw it off for mate- 
rial advantages. Among those who can be 
named are Heine, Borne, Gans, the daughters of 
Mendelssohn, Fanny Lewald, and others less 
noted. The very circumstance of having been 
born a Jew was then sufficient to close every 
career to the ambitious, and this, coupled with 
the fact that Judaism had become, in a great 
measure, a mass of forms and ceremonies no 
longer consistent with life, brought about this 
sad result, that many, no longer seeing any 
thing in the religion but a formalism and a legal- 
ism, turned from it and adopted Christianity — 
not from conviction, but for no other reason 
than that this was the " open sesame " which un- 
barred the gates of the world to them. This 



132 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

state of affairs, too, opened the eyes of others, 
to whom Judaism was still something more than 
a name ; and they, appreciating the needs of the 
time and and of the people, instituted the reform 
movement, which since then has accomplished so 
much. As one of those who felt only the re- 
strictions of Jewish legalism, but were unmoved 
by any of its great thoughts and conceptions, 
Deronda's mother is presented. As intense a 
Jew as her father had been, so intense was her 
feeling the other way. 

In introducing her as a great singer, and 
Klesmer as a remarkable pianist, and Mirah with 
her perfect voice, the author seems to point to 
the fact of the greatness of the Jews in music 
and in song, the only manner in which a people, 
so greatly gifted in many ways and directions, 
could give expression to the aesthetic sense. It 
is evident why there could be no sculptors or 
painters among the Jews in ancient or medieval 
times, for well-nigh all the works of art treated 
subjects of a religious character, and the Jews, 
with their strict monotheism and the literal 
interpretation of the second commandment, 
could naturally pursue none of the plastic arts. 
Hence, music and poetry were the only chan- 
nels in which the assthetic nature among them 
could develop itself. In our later day, however, 
when all subjects are brought within the scope 
of these arts, and when it is felt that the 
fashioning of figures does not indicate idolatry. 



Vnr. GEORGE ELIOT's " DANIEL DERONDA." 133 

as was the conception of an earlier time, many a 
Jew has gained distinction in these branches. 
Jewish this woman is not at all. She has no 
affection ; she loved nothing but her voice — now 
that it is gone, she has nothing to live for. 
Deronda is to her a beautiful creature, nothing 
more ; not a pulse of maternal affection throbs 
when she sees him the first time after a lapse of 
many years ; she, with her coldness, her antipa- 
thy to every thing Jewish, is an admirable foil 
to the other Jewish woman of the book, Mirah, 
all warmth, all affection, all love. 

With Mirah, the Jewish character is first in- 
troduced, and in her person a beautiful character 
it is — beautiful in every way, in her actions, in 
the affection for her mother's memory, in the 
pity and sympathy for her scapegrace father. 
An artistic soul, seeming to have gathered 
within her nature all the beauty, without a 
blemish, one perfect whole, finely strung, a sym- 
pathetic heart, for her it is " much easier to share 
in love than in hatred. Her religion is of one 
fiber with her affections." It is deep-seated in 
her. 'Mid evil and temptation, she had kept 
herself pure. The hallowing influence of her 
life had come from the spirit of her whose every 
accent she remembered as fraught with a moth- 
er's love. Her Mirah always had in her mind. 
They could never be really parted. She wished 
to be a good Jewess, because her mother had 
been. She reasoned no more about it. The fact 



134 THE JEW m ENGLISH FICTION. 

was there. She says, when spoken to about 
becoming a Christian : " I will never separate 
myself from my mother's people. I was forced 
to fly from my father, but if he came back in 
age, and in weakness, and in want, and needed 
me, should I say, ' This is not my father ? ' If 
he had shame, I must share it. It was he who 
was given to me for my father, and not another. 
And so it is with my people. I will always be a 
Jewess. I will love Christians when they are 
good, like you, but I will always cling to my 
people. I will always worship with them." So 
it is throughout, that fervid Jewish feeling which 
is hers. 

It is inborn. She has drunk it in with her 
mother's milk in her mother's home. Oh ! that 
Jewish home, the remembrance of which passed 
before her mind like a beautiful vision. Early 
had she been stolen from that mother's side, but 
she thinks her '' life began with waking up and 
loving my mother's face ; it was so near to me, 
and her arms were round me and she sung to 
me. One hymn she sang so often, so often ; and 
then she taught me to sing it with her — it was 
the first I ever sung. They were always Hebrew 
hymns she sung ; and because I never knew the 
meaning of the words they seemed full of noth- 
ing but our love and happiness. When I lay in 
my little bed, and it was all white above me, she 
used to bend over me between me and the white 
and sing in a sweet, low voice." Thus is Mirah, all 



VIII. GEOKGE ELIOT's " DANIEL DERONDA." 135 

memory, all affection, the spirit of conservatism ; 
she represents all that was beautiful in the old 
Jewish customs without any of the narrowness — 
the love and affection of the Jewish home, un- 
tainted and untouched by the miseries of the outer 
world. She appears like some vision of all that 
was fair and tender in the past, with none of the 
hardness and harshness. She reminds us of some 
pure Jewish maiden of old, a Sulamith perhaps, 
in modern guise, moving among modern figures, 
but her soul is in the past. The doubting, inquir- 
ing spirit of the present has not touched her — 
she is the picture of childlike faith. She is a 
woman of women, with only womanly qualities; 
in all the vicissitudes of a changing life she re- 
tains her innocence and sweetness. From her, 
however, we learn naught of Jewish conceptions. 
She is well pictured as the Jewish woman of the 
past, who took no interest in religious specula- 
tions or discussions. The Jewish woman was 
the central figure of all home scenes, one of the 
vital elements of the life of Judaism, in truth, of 
all religion. She stood for the sentiment as the 
man represented the intellect. Honored and be- 
loved was she as wife and mother, as the guard- 
ian spirit of the home, but outside of this she 
took but little part in religious discussions and 
doings. This belonged to the men, and for this 
we must look to the men in our novel. Daniel 
Deronda and Mordecai embody the ideas of the 



136 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

book, which with startling novelty to the greater 
public were so vividly expressed. 

Daniel Deronda is presented to us as a won- 
derful character, well-nigh as perfect as man can 
be drawn. " There was scarcely a delicacy of 
feeling of which he was not capable." '^His 
inborn lovingness was strong enough to keep 
itself on a level with resentment." "In him 
the sense of injury bred — not the will to in- 
flict injuries, but a hatred of all injury." 
"From boyhood up he was actuated by sym- 
pathy for all, a sympathy that shaped his nat- 
ure, and was the chief and great characteristic 
in his intercourse with others." " This sym- 
pathy always impelled him toward the unfor- 
tunate, and caused him to withdraw almost 
coldly from the fortunate. He had a passion for 
pelted people." " He had a stamp of rarity in 
a subdued fervor of sympathy, an activity of im- 
agination in behalf of others which did not show 
itself offensively, but was continually seen in acts 
of consideration which struck his companions as 
moral eccentricity." " His conscience included 
sensibilities far beyond the common, and persons 
were attracted to him in proportion to the pos- 
sibility of defending them." Here then was this 
exceptional character placed in humdrum En- 
glish society. His soul " striving for an ideal — 
for he was early impassioned by ideas, and burned 
his fire on these heights — could not be satisfied 
with the common objects of life which content 



Vni. GEORGE ELIOT'S " DANIEL DERONDA." 137 

most men." " He had no desire to pass through 
life as did his neighbor." As he had a " yearning 
for wide knowledge, so too was he possessed of 
dreams of a wide activity." In the material age 
of unfaith he looked in vain for such a lofty 
object of life. " There was danger that, owing 
to irresoluteness, there would be paralyzed in 
him the indignation against wrong ; there was 
danger that in mere thought and inaction his 
energies would be dissipated, that in looking 
and searching for an ideal he would waste his 
life." He was not one of those who found his 
work in the common walks of life, among men, 
in the market, in the street ; what he longed for 
was " some external event or some inward light 
that would urge him into a definite line of action 
and compress his wandering energy." We must 
confess that with all the elaborateness and detail 
with which the character is drawn, with all the 
minute analysis of motive and action, which was 
expended in fashioning this figure of manhood, 
Deronda is not, as portrayed, equal to the task 
which he is made to consider his life's aim and 
mission. He is not made of the stuff out of 
which heroes or leaders are fashioned. He is 
afraid to appear exceptional, a grievous fault in 
one that would accomplish a great work. He 
has all the sympathy necessary, but not the 
power. He always requires a guiding hand. He 
is awakened to his mission in life by Mordecai. 
He is fashioned by the powers of this master 



138 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

mind. Here, then, is a mission upon which he 
can concentrate his energies. Before he knows 
that he is a Jew he is interested hy Mirah and 
by Mordecai. His feelings of sympathy had 
drawn him to the girl whom he had rescued when 
in distress, and through his sympathy for her he 
had come into contact with Mordecai. From 
the first he had felt interested in the consump- 
tive Hebrew scholar and enthusiast. George 
Eliot certainly believed in a spiritual kinship, in 
a speaking of soul unto soul, for in the first 
meeting of Deronda and Mordecai in the book- 
shop the latter felt unconsciously drawn to the 
former ; and in their later meeting, on the bridge, 
there is intimated an ideal relationship, a soul 
longing, that convinced Mordecai that this was 
his spiritual brother, who would carry out his 
desire, that their souls would join in the grand 
work, as Mordecai expressed it, before Deronda 
has learned the story of his family and his birth, 
"And you would have me consider it doubtful 
whether you were born a Jew. Have we not 
from the first touched each other with invisible 
fibers ? Have we not quivered together like the 
leaves from a common stem, with strivings from 
a common root?" This intense conviction of 
Mordecai began to influence Deronda so that the 
thought of the possibility of his having been 
born a Jew became more and more familiar to 
him and more and more agreeable. It is inter- 
esting to trace the development of the Jewish 



Vni. GEORGE ELIOT'S " DANIEL DERONDA." 189 

consciousness in him, which he had not at the 
start. 

After the first interest in the Jews had been 
awakened in him by Mirah, he devoted much 
time to a subject which had never occupied him 
before. He had thought that '' all cultured Jews 
had dropped their religion, and had associated 
them with loud wealth, or with dingy streets 
and back alleys." But he had never felt harshly 
toward them. His sympathetic nature would 
not permit that. He began to study their 
history. He grew more and more familiar with 
their ideal life. Mordecai's dreams seemed to 
have a substantial background. So imbued, so 
full was he of Mordecai's thought, that when he 
went forth to at last learn the particulars of his 
birth and parentage, he almost hoped that it be 
true that he was born a Jew, for then he felt 
that he would have somewhat to work for. A 
stronger mind had gained absolute control over 
him, and led him as it would. When, therefore, 
in answer to his mother, who explained her 
course, and tried to impress upon him that it 
was for his good that she had him raised igno- 
rant of his Jewish parentage, he replied that he 
was glad he was born a Jew, it is to this influence 
of Mordecai, as one of the causes that we must 
trace this joy. The author would have it appear 
due to the principle of heredity, that the Jewish 
race instinct was so strong in Deronda that it 
overcame everything else ; that there was in him 



140 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

an inherited longing, the effect of brooding, 
passionate thoughts in many ancestors. The 
question now arises whether any hereditary in- 
stinct — granting now for argument's sake, that 
there is a race instinct — is strong enough to sur- 
vive all the years, the circumstances, the educa- 
tion, as it is represented to have done in this 
case. Here is Deronda, reared from his baby- 
hood in the Christian religion, never hearing a 
word of Jews or Judaism until he had reached 
his twenty-fifth year. His surroundings, his ed- 
ucation, his training, his companions, all were 
not suggestive of the slightest tinge of Jewish 
thought or life. He learns comparatively late, 
at least after the lapse of many years, that he is 
a Jew, and his whole being exults with joy at 
the fact, he bursts forth with a passionate " I am 
glad of it." This is scarcely natural. A point 
has been strained. It was not the race instinct 
that caused him to receive the news with 
pleasure. Had he never met Mordecai and 
Mirah, the information would not have aroused 
in him any such sensation, he would have 
agreed with his mother, that her action had 
been for the best. It was circumstance, and not 
heredity, that inspired him with his attitude 
toward the Jews. During his whole life he had 
met with commonplace people. For the first 
time he had seen and heard in Mordecai a gen- 
uine enthusiast. The influence grew on him; 
thought on the subject but increased the influ- 



Vni. GEOKGE ELIOT's " DANIEL DERONDA." 141 

ence. Of this his mother knew naught, but she 
divined another circumstance which caused him 
to welcome the assurance of his Jewish birth, 
when she exclaimed during their last conversa- 
tion, " You are in love with a Jewess." These 
two facts, then the wondrous influence of Mor- 
decai's superior mind, and the sympathy of De- 
ronda's nature, which had ripened into love for 
Mirah, explain and justify his satisfaction, but 
not the principle of heredity or race instinct, 
which, even if strong, would have been overcome 
by the power of circumstance and education, es- 
pecially in a nature so readily molded, and so 
little self-asserting as Deronda's, even as he says, 
" The Christian sympathies in which my mind 
"v: .4,8 reared, can never die out of me." 

He has now found an ideal and an object; he 
is a Jew; he will assimilate Mordecai's ideas. 
He will be the instrument of Mordecai's will. 
He will identify himself as far as possible with 
his people, and if any work can be done for 
them that he can give his soul and hand to, he 
will do it. But we feel he will not do it. He is 
no enthusiast ; he will do nothing. After Mor- 
decai's guidance shall have left him, he will be 
as aimless as before. He will dream of the pos- 
sibilities of Mordecai's visions, but he will never 
move definitely in any thing requiring action. 
He has not that strength and undaunted vigor 
that must actuate leaders of movements. He is 
a Jew because his sympathies have been aroused ; 



142 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

because to one conservative in sentiment and 
feeling as he is, the history of the people is rich 
with traditions and glorious achievement; be- 
cause to one sympathetic as he is, the persecu- 
tions and oppressions to which they had been 
subjected, appealed strongly. He lives not in 
the present. His thoughts are in the past, or 
else dreamily vague in same distant future, 
which shall be like the past. He is no pro- 
gressist. He represents neither the thought nor 
the work of the Jew of the present. At the end 
of the book, as has been well said, " when De- 
ronda wanders off to the East, we feel sure that he 
will travel about year after year, doing deeds of 
kindness, and cherishing noble aspirations, but 
further removed than even a passionate dreamer 
like Mordecai from working out any deliverance 
either for his people or for mankind." He un- 
derstands not the mission of Israel, but he will 
contribute nothing toward a realization of even 
his narrow conception of it. 

All these figures are drawn, as they should be 
in works of fiction by a strong, unprejudiced, 
powerful mind. The gallery of portraits upon 
which we have gazed — the gentle Mirah, the pas- 
sionate princess, Deronda's mother, the thrifty 
Cohen family, the sympathetic, dreaming De- 
ronda, show us that the correct idea has been 
grasped that there is no one special passion, 
sympathy, sentiment, feeling, desire, which is 
Jewish, but that all the qualities of man are in 



VIII. GEORGE ELIOT'S " DANIEL DERONDA." 143 

the Jews inherent, as they are in all men. The 
Jew, as the Jew of the novel, '' The Kew 
Prophet," Mordecai and his theories, shall now 
give us occasion to set forth in how far the 
conception of Judaism, as presented in this 
work, agrees with the aim and ideal of the re- 
ligion. 

II. 
In undertaking a study of the character of 
Mordecai, we feel all the difficulty there is in 
impartially treating so exceptional a figure. It 
is the man of one idea whom we have before us, 
and we must remember that men of one idea 
are either monomaniacs or geniuses. As the 
former, in our matter-of-fact time, Mordecai has 
undoubtedly appeared to some; to a few his 
soul seems aflame with the light of genius, but 
to the many he is inexplicable, and the majority 
of readers feel like turning over the pages and 
skipping the Mordecai parts of the book, or else 
read them from a feeling of duty. George Eliot 
undertook the difficult task of presenting unfa- 
miliar ideas to the world in the novel-form. She 
had formed, owing, without doubt, much to her 
surroundings (for in England the notions con- 
cerning Judaism which she has set forth are 
generally held), peculiar ideas of the mission 
of the Jews and Judaism, and has made Mor- 
decai the mouthpiece of her views. A writer 
in one of the English magazines, some years 
ago pointed out what is most likely the original 



144 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

of Mordecai. In an introduction to a study on 
Spinoza, George Henry Lewes speaks of a club 
of whicli he was a member, when a young man, 
which met on Saturday nights for the purpose 
of philosophical discussions. 

This club reminds one much of the Hand and 
Banner, of which Mordecai was a member, and 
where in the novel the most notable discussion 
on the Jews takes place. The club, like the 
one mentioned in the novel, was entirely in- 
formal, was composed of six, a bookseller, a 
journeyman watchmaker, one who lived on a 
moderate income, a bootmaker, a poet, and a 
general thinker. The original of Mordecai is 
undoubtedly one whom Lewes mentions as a 
German Jew by the name of Kohn, and whom 
he describes as follows, in the general lines of 
which description those who are at all familiar 
with the portrayal of Mordecai will recognize 
the resemblance : 

" We all admired him as a man of astonishing 
subtlety and logical force no less than of sweet 
personal worth. He remains in my memory as 
a type of philosophic dignity, a calm, medi- 
tative, amiable man, by trade a journeyman 
watchmaker, very poor, with weak eyes and 
chest, grave and gentle in demeanor, incorrupti- 
ble even by the seductions of vanity. I habitu- 
ally think of him in connection with Spinoza, 
almost as much on account of his personal worth, 
as because to him I owe my first acquaintance 



Vm. GEORGE ELIOT's " DANIEL DERONDA.'* 145 

with the Hebrew thinker. My admiration of 
him was of that enthusiastic temper which, in 
youth, we feel for our intellectual leaders. I 
loved his weak eyes and low voice. I venerated 
his intellect. He was the only man I did not 
contradict in the impatience of argument. An 
immense pity and fervid indignation filled me as 
I came away from his attic in one of the Hol- 
born courts, where I had seen him in the pinch- 
ing poverty of his home. Indignantly I railed 
against society, which could allow so great an 
intellect to withdraw itself from nobler works 
and waste its precious hours in mending watches. 
But he was wise in his resignation, thought I 
in my young indignation. Life was hard to him 
as to all of us, but he was content to earn a 
miserable pittance by handicraft and kept his 
soul serene. I learned to understand him better 
when I learned the story of Spinoza's life. 

" Kohn, as may be supposed, early established 
his supremacy in our club. A magisterial intel- 
lect always makes itself felt. Even those who 
differed from him most widely paid involuntary 
homage to his power." 

Mordecai is such a master mind, who follows 
his humble trade, getting his crust by a handi- 
craft, like Spinoza, and " like the great transmit- 
ters (of Israel), who labored with their hands for 
scant bread, but preserved and enlarged the 
heritage of memory, and saved the soul of Israel 
alive, as a seed among the tombs." He is pre- 



146 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

sented as a prophet of tlie exile, a latter-day 
Ezekiel, a new Hebrew poet, and appears as an 
illuminated type of bodily emaciation and spir- 
itual eagerness. Weak and consumptive, but 
with a great soul, this Mordecai has been looking 
for years for one who, young, beautiful, and 
strong, shall carry out his ideas when he is no 
more, whose soul shall be joined to his soul, 
whose pulse shall beat with his pulse. So long 
had he brooded upon this that it had transformed 
itself into an actual fact, and he reasoned him- 
self into it so that his " yearning for transmission 
had become a hope, a confident belief, which 
took on the intensity of expectant faith in a 
prophecy." He lives in another world. To the 
people with whom he dwells, he appears insane. 
They looked upon him as a " compound — work- 
man, dominie, vessel of charity, inspired idiot, 
and (if the truth must be told) dangerous here- 
tic." He is, indeed, drawn with all the attributes 
of psychological mystery. He is purely vision- 
ary, feeds himself on visions, for '^ visions are the 
creators and feeders of the world." He firmly 
believes in premonition; he is sure his friend 
will come. He seizes upon Deronda as the one 
who shall transmit his ideas ; not even when he 
learns that Deronda is not a Jew, is his faith 
shaken ; he knows, he feels, that he must be so ; 
he imagines that Deronda is ignorant of his 
origin, and when he learns that this is true, he 
never for a moment doubts the end when all 



VIII. GEORGE ELIOT's " DANIEL DERONDA." 147 

shall be learned. Deronda shall be his new life, 
his new soul, when all this breath is breathed 
out. Already, in their first lengthy interview, 
he begins to influence Deronda ; it is a case of a 
strong mind overpowering a weaker one. His 
enthusiasm is fervid, and the new friend can not 
withstand him. Deronda is to be to him not 
only a hand, but a soul, believing his belief, 
moved by his reason, hoping his hope, seeing the 
visions he points to, beholding a glory where he 
beholds it. Is this enthusiast a prophet or a 
dreamer, a genius or a madman ? Deronda asks. 

" Great wit to madness is allied, 
And thin partitions do their bounds divide." 

This consumptive, who turned visions into 
overmastering impressions, and read outward 
facts as fulfillment — whose enthusiasm was so 
burning, whose faith so powerful — was he one 
of those monomaniacs who have found the phil- 
osopher's stone, or invented perpetual motion, or 
did there flame within him the light of genius, 
and was he unappreciated and misunderstood? 
So mused Deronda, and his sympathy on the 
one hand and faith in Mordecai on the other 
caused him to decide the scale in favor of Mor- 
decai's greatness. What, then, was the idea of 
this pale enthusiast, what his mission ? Surely, 
one unreal and impossible enough. It awoke in 
him in early years. The ideas came to him be- 
cause he was a Jew. They were a trust to 



148 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

fulfill, an inspiration, because he was a Jew, and 
felt the heart of his race beating within him. 
And he had dreamed upon them so long that 
they stood before him as a reality. The vague 
outlines had been filled up, and the whole struc- 
ture was complete in his mind. He lived in the 
past, was a student and disciple of Jehudah 
Halevi, whose poems he made a part of himself, 
and none of the great poet's thoughts did he so 
much and so thoroughly imbibe as that of the 
return to Palestine — that Israel is the heart of 
the nations, and must once again be restored to 
Palestine, to be the connection between the East 
and the West, to be to the East what Belgium is 
to the West. These same ideas George Eliot 
repeated, in an essay published some years later, 
entitled : " The Modern Hep, Hep, Hep ! " 

A firm believer in the instinct of race and na- 
tionality, she gave full expression to her thought 
through Mordecai, but she did not thereby at all 
express the ideal of the Jews. The most inter- 
esting part of the book, as far as the Judaism is 
concerned, is the forty-second chapter, the dis- 
cussion at the club of the Hand and Banner, the 
philosophical debating society mentioned above. 
Here Mordecai — " in English, that Isaiah might 
have spoken," had he used that tongue— with 
rushing force and overwhelming enthusiasm 
utters forth his ideas, for he had before him De- 
ronda, the disciple who was to continue his work. 
There were present as members of the club, to 



VIII. GEORGE ELIOT's " DANIEL DERONDA." 149 

oppose him, two other Jews : Pash, who saw 
that the feeling of nationality was every-where 
dying, and Gideon, whom the author calls a 
" rational Jew." Mordecai looks upon the Jew 
as not in hearty sympathy with the people 
among whom he dwells. He is an alien in 
spirit, whatever he may be in form. He shows 
no patriotism. Therefore he must again have 
his own land and his own government. This 
is false doctrine. The orthodox Jews still 
retain the prayers for a return to Palestine 
in their ritual, but they are only a form. 
The Jews are patriotic. The records of the 
Revolution and the Rebellion in this coun- 
try, of the Franco-Prussian war, of the strug- 
gles in Italy for unification, all offer proof 
of the thoroughness with which they have lived 
themselves into the lives of these nations, and 
how truly they are of and with them. Mordecai 
truly says that unless nationality is a feeling, 
what effect can it have as an idea. And the 
Jews have not the feeling of nationality as Jews. 
"Anew Judea poised between East and West" — • 
a covenant of reconciliation is the idea of an en- 
thusiast, but not of one who has thoroughly en- 
tered into the practical side of the question. It 
is an exploded notion. Our times can not be 
compared to those of Zerubabel and Ezra, nor 
the Jews of now to those of then. This is the 
favorite comparison of those who advocate the 



150 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

return. And many of these schemes of a re- 
possession of Palestine and a new Judea are set 
forth by Christian writers. They conceive this 
to be the yet unfulfilled mission of the Jews, if 
they have any. Among the Jews the Zionistic 
movement has laid stress of late upon this inter- 
pretation of Judaism's mission; but after all, the 
true mission of Judaism is not the re-establish- 
ment of a tiny state, but the realization of the 
prophetic ideals, the unity of God, universal 
peace and justice. Mordecai, however, planned 
it all out beautifully. The experience gained 
during eighteen centuries of despotism, the 
wealth accumulated, the knowledge and learn- 
ing acquired, are all providential to conduce to 
the welfare of the new Jewish state. He is 
so full of this thought that, although he 
recognizes some of the difficulties, these can 
be swept away if the people be but willing. 
But they are not willing, at least not the 
Jews of the free countries. They have been ad- 
mitted into the citizenship of states, and have 
assimilated to themselves the customs of their 
surroundings. Whatever notions of this kind 
may have existed in the past, they cannot be 
quoted in defense of the argument. Wherever 
light and liberty were granted the Jews the 
thought of a return to Palestine, although con- 
tained in the ritual, never received practical 
voice; it was only in the exclusion and oppres- 
sion of the Ghetto, when night reigned and the 



Vni. GEORGE ELIOT's " DANIEL DERONDA." 151 

pall of thick darkness had settled upon them, 
that they sighed for the redemption, and hoped 
for a return to their land. In such times false- 
Messiahs found among them followers sufficient, 
and the deluded people clung with a fervency 
worthy of a hetter cause to the demagogues who 
dazzled and deceived them. Such made capital 
out of this helief of the people. Eagerly they 
grasped at any hope which promised to release 
them from the bondage of body and soul in 
which they were confined. But every cause has 
its enthusiasts. False systems, as well as true, 
have had their martyrs. Idealists there are who 
can set as their ideal any object on which they 
have long enough brooded, perfectly pure and 
sincere in their every expression and in their 
every hope. Of this class of idealists is Mordecai. 
He is truly grand in his fervor. Even such as 
agree not with his thoughts will acknowledge 
that the novelist has given a magnificent por- 
trayal, that shall stand, perhaps, as her greatest 
creation. In a hundred and one ways he gives 
expression to this same thought. In none clearer 
than in this : 

'' I say the eff'ect of our separateness will not 
be completed and have its highest character^ 
unless our race takes on again the character of a 
nationality." 

The past has become his parent, the future 
stretches out toward him the appealing arms of 
children, he says. What of the present ? He seep 



152 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

in it a blindness that prevents the Jews from per 
ceiving their true mission. To any but a vision- 
ary, the present would have taught another les- 
son, viz., that the idea of a peculiar nation- 
ality has disappeared very largely; that one aim 
and purpose of the Jew to-day is to preach and 
impress the lesson that he is peculiar only in his 
religion, not in his nationality; to prove by 
words, acts, and deeds, that Judaism is not a 
particularism, but a universalism ; that it at- 
taches not to special time or place, but is for all 
times and all places. If, then, Mordecai's con- 
ception and presentation is not in accord with 
that of many Jews of to-day, what is the concep- 
tion that shall express their standpoint? What 
is Judaism, as they would have it explained by 
an advocate of their idea? "The most learned 
and liberal men among us who are attached to 
our religion are for cleansing our liturgy of all 
such notions as a literal fulfillment of the proph- 
ecies about restoration, and so on. Prune it of 
a few useless rites and literal interpretations of 
that sort, and our religion is the simplest of all 
religions, and forms no barrier to a union be- 
tween us and the rest of the world." So says 
Gideon, in answer to Mordecai. There- can be 
no doubt but that a certain amount of senti- 
mentalism attaches to such views as Mordecai 
advances; they found on a noble past; they at- 
tract dreamers and visionaries ; they can be set 
forth in beautiful, ardent words ; they can even 



VIII. 



163 



interest poetic souls, who pour forth their plaint 
in glowing song; but to such as live in the 
present, they sound like the utterances of some 
medieval bard, who glorified an ideal, unreal and 
unattainable, in poetic strains. The conditions 
of life are such that religion must be somewhat 
more than a sentimentalism and a romanticism, 
that is ensconced in ancient structures, with all 
the surroundings of past days. Eeligion also, in 
its outward expression, is governed by the spirit 
of progress, and, had George Eliot introduced, as 
her central Jewish figure, a thinker imbued and 
impressed with this modern spirit, although he 
might not have been as interesting as this resur- 
rected prophet of the exile, and might not have 
been moved by all the sentiment that Mordecai 
is made to represent, still would he have been 
more real, more flesh and blood, less visionary, 
more representative of modern Jewish thought, 
less theoretical, more practical — ^one who, as well 
as Mordecai, might have, in a manner more 
suited to the present, stood as a proof " of the 
hitherto neglected reality that Judaism is some- 
thing still throbbing in human lives" — that it 
has the capacity to satisfy the wants of the 
religious conscience. How would such a one 
have spoken ? 

'No less earnestly, no less fervently, he would 
have discoursed somewhat in this wise : From 
the time that the Roman legions conquered 
Jerusalem, and the brand hurled by the Roman 



164 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

soldier fell upon tlie Temple and set the sacred 
edifice on fire, Jewish nationality has ceased. 
Then it was that one of the most renowned of 
teachers said : ^' One altar of God in Israel is 
not destroyed, one mode of atonement still ex- 
ists, and that is good works ; go forth and do 
them." And again : " IS'o place is eo ipso holy ; 
the men in it make it holy." Israel's training 
time was at an end. The small confines of Pal- 
estine were suited to them as a home until the 
great teachings of the religion had hecome thor- 
oughly impressed upon the people and a portion 
of their very life. But now their larger mission 
was to hegin ; out among the nations, to stand 
firm and steadfast as the upholders of mono- 
theism. A wonderful sentence of one of the 
ancient writings says : " On the day the temple 
was destroyed, the Messiah was born." On the 
day that Israel was scattered forth among the 
nations, its Messianic mission began. 

One of its shoots would soon begin to spread 
some of its ideas among the nations of Europe ; 
Christianity, the daughter of Judaism, was start- 
ing forth on its wondrous career. Six centuries 
later another shoot of Judaism should spread 
its ideas among the people of Asia and Africa. 
But neither of these was pure, both had bor- 
rowed heathen elements : Christianity, the tangi- 
ble conception of a man-god ; Mohammedanism, 
the pagan thought of fate, specially suited to the 
population among which it spread. Judaism in 



Vni. GEORGE ELIOT's " DANIEL DERONDA." 155 

its purity, the exponent of monotheism, still had 
its great mission, and forth went the Jews among 
the nations to live for their religion ; to suffer, to 
die in the body, but never in the spirit. Through 
life the divine unity was the truth that upheld 
the Jew, before death it was the last word he 
uttered. Surely, if ever aught was providential, 
the dispersion of the Jews among the nations 
was. Had they all dwelt in one land what could 
have prevented the strong and powerful foes 
from exterminating them ? As it was, were they 
persecuted in Spain, they found peace in Italy ; 
were they massacred in Germany, they sought 
refuge in Poland ; were they oppressed in France, 
they betook themselves to the land beyond the 
Rhine, where, perhaps, there was safety. The 
Jews were no longer a nation, they were a re- 
ligious community, whose members were scat- 
tered here, there, every-where over the civilized 
world. Their enemies attempted to crush them, 
but they were indestructible. Their mission 
was but beginning ; in Palestine they had been 
prepared for this large life, now they must live 
on, work on, the leaders in the grand march of 
humanity, toward the mount of the Eternal, the 
banner-bearers of the glorious truth of mono- 
theism ; and only when this truth shall be uni- 
versally acknowledged, only when the mists of 
superstition and error that becloud the minds of 
men shall have cleared, and as the bright sun of 
truth, the acknowledgment of the Divine Unity 



156 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

shall illumine the world, shall the mission of the 
Jews be fulfilled, and not till then. Therefore, 
exist they thus among all nations, not separated 
and yet separated ; one with all among whom 
they dwell in every national custom, and act, in 
every patriotic feeling and sentiment ; separate 
in their religion, to be distinguished by thai 
only and nothing more. 

To speak of a Jewish consciousness as a long- 
ing for a national idea and a consummation of na- 
tional hope, is to give but one side of the matter ; 
for many the Jewish consciousness is religious 
only. Were it not so, how could be explained 
the long and weary struggle for national eman- 
cipation in every land ? How could be ac- 
counted for the eagerness with which every 
sign of the disappearance of discriminating ex- 
clusiveness was and is welcomed ? A religious 
consciousness is theirs, which hails with joy every 
evidence of increasing good will among men, the 
removal of the barriers that hatred, superstition 
and oppression have erected, the gradual meeting 
of all in that ever enlarging space, the vantage- 
ground of humanity. JS'ot the return to Pales- 
tine, not the '' planting of the national ensign " 
(to repeat Mordecai's words), expresses Israel's 
Messianic hope, " but the establishment of the 
kingdom of truth, justice and peace among all 
men," the realization of the prophet's word, 
the approach of the time when God shall be one 
and his name one. 



Vni. GEOEGE ELIOT'S " DANIEL DERONDA." 157 

Gradually, gradually, the exclusiveness of the 
Jew toward others and of others toward him is 
vanishing with other traditions, and so will it 
continue until in all and among all the thought 
of man's likeness unto man shall cause to disap- 
pear all differences, when man-made distinctions 
shall be lost in God-made resemblances. 

"Words such as these are representative of 
Jewish thought rather than Mordecai's strains 
telling of a restored national life. Dreams and 
visions they are, the dreams of an enthusiast 
who has lived only in the past ; the visions of an 
excited brain that has fed upon the volumes of 
ancient lore. As dreams and as visions they 
appear to us, nothing more. Mordecai has been 
called, by an admiring critic, Isaiah redivivus, 
Isaiah living again. Yes, but Isaiah when he 
promised and prophesied the return, and extolled 
the glory of Zion, spoke but of his own days, 
when a people in sorrow required comfort; 
Isaiah living now would utter entirely different 
sentences. There is no people in sorrow, none 
longing for a return ; he would have been heard 
in but that one glorious Isaianic strain, whose 
refrain is one God and one humanity. 

The character of Mordecai as drawn, aside 
from his all-absorbing visions and theories, is in 
truth most beautiful. Resigned to his lot, grate- 
ful to the people so much his inferiors, with 
whom he lives ; bound to them with an affection 
that, amid all their sordidness and materiality, 



158 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

enabled him to be conscious of the hearts beat- 
ing with kindness ; his interest in the boy Jacob, 
toward whom "his habitual tenderness easily- 
turned into the teacher's fatherhood," he em- 
bodies in his life what he says is the spirit of 
Judaism, " The spirit of our religious life is not 
hatred of aught but wrong." All of this, to- 
gether with the quiet ecstacy with which he re- 
ceives the information of the rescue of his sister ; 
the moral uprightness, in whose presence even 
the ready excuses and the light-hearted wicked- 
ness of his father are dumb, causes us to feel 
that in this picture the great writer reached the 
culmination of her powers. It is her finest piece 
of work. She has drawn a character so ideally 
noble, of such grand lines, that he seems a hero, 
one of those loftiest ones of earth, whose thought, 
whose life, are all of one piece — certainly the 
grandest and noblest Jewish character that has 
been given to the world by any English novel- 
ist. To most readers he has appeared unreal, 
stilted, moving too much on the heights, too 
far removed from the common walks of life. He 
speaks always in visions, in ideals, and hence is 
too peculiar to be aught but individual. 

That we difier from the opinions expressed 
does not prevent us from granting the meed of 
praise that in this great novel of George Eliot's 
the Jew is treated as he should be. The Jew is 
presented as a man; the Jewess as a woman. 
N"either the goodness of Mirah nor the wicked- 



Vm. GEORGE ELIOT'S " DANIEL DERONDA." 159 

ness of her father are described as Jewish ; the 
former arose from the hallowed memory of a 
mother's influence, the latter from a weak na- 
ture that succumbed to evil associations and fas- 
cinations. The perfection of Mordecai's charac- 
ter is due to the working of a noble soul with 
intuitions of the loftiest. Deronda, too, is such 
as he is, not as a Jew, but as an Englishman. 
Those chapters which may be designated as 
Jewish, are such only from the fact that they 
are occupied with purely Jewish questions ; and 
the light wherein they are treated, but not that 
they are treated, can be the cubject of criticism. 
We are not moved to indignation by having a 
wicked character drawn, nor do we feel un- 
comfortable by having an impossibly good fig- 
ure presented as such because either is Jewish. 
In neither direction has the author sinned. Her 
noble men and women are such as developments 
of fine and beautiful characteristics. They are 
such naturally, as are also her wicked ones. 
Mordecai, although we may regard his visions 
and theories impracticable and impossible of ful- 
fillment, is yet possibly Jewish in thought. With 
a certain self-training and a nourishment on 
medieval and ancient Jewish sentiments to the 
exclusion of all else, a mind of this kind can be 
evolved ; but let it be stated again that Mor- 
decai is not a representative of modern Jewish 
thought. Yet is the whole picture pathetic — 
the fervent soul in the weak body; the ideal in 



160 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

SO fragile a vessel. Such there are, living the 
noble lives they do, whose ideals, whether true 
or false, have a hallowing influence on them- 
selves and on those whom they may immedi- 
ately affect, as Mordecai did Deronda. In 
thinking upon the whole presentation of Mor- 
decai, we unconsciously repeat the lines the 
novelist herself quotes: 

"My spirit is too weak; mortality 
Weighs heavy on me like unwilling sleep, 
And each imagined pinnacle and steep 
Of godlike hardship, tells me I must die — 
Like a sick eagle looking at the sky." 



IX. " CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO." 161 



IX. za:n'gwill's "CHiLDEE:^r of the 

GHETTO/' AND OTHERS. 

In the introductory chapter of this volume the 
statement was made that the peculiar traits and 
customs with the accompanying characteristic 
view-points of life, man and the world which 
had developed in Jewry during the Christian 
centuries of oppression and exclusion offer legiti- 
mate material for treatment by the fictionist. 
Reference was made to a number of German 
writers, such as Kompert, Bernstein, Franzos 
and Kohn who had pictured this life of the 
Ghetto in tale and story. During the years 
that have elapsed since this book was issued, a 
similar school of authors has appeared in Eng- 
land and America. An estimate of the work 
of some of these writers forms the subject of this 
chapter. 

Easily at the head of this school stands Israel 
Zangwill, whose classic " The Children of the 
Ghetto," led the way in this line of endeavor. 
It is about ten years since this remarkable book 
that opened an unknown world to the English 
reading public brought into prominent notice a 
new writer who portrayed the lights and shades 
of Jewish life with such skill as betrayed a 
master equipped with the necessary gifts, viz., 



162 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

keen insight into the life wherewith he was con- 
cerned, adequate information concerning all the 
comple:?: phases of Jewish character, sufficient 
knowledge of historical facts and present condi- 
tions, brilliant literary ability, epigrammatic 
power, and critical acumen combined with sym- 
pathetic feeling. Before attempting a more or 
less exhaustive presentation and estimate of 
Zangwill's work, it may be well to institute a 
brief comparison between him and the writer 
who up to the time of his appearance in the 
literary field was by common consent considered 
the foremost of the Ghetto novelists. I refer to 
Leopold Kompert. I am led to do this because 
such a comparison throws a strong light on dif- 
ferent methods of treating similar themes. 
Kompert's tales, beautiful and touching as they 
are, and true to the life as far as they go, yet 
show only one side of the picture. Kompert 
lived in the days when the emancipation of the 
Jews from the restrictive legislation of centuries 
was a living issue in European political life ; be- 
ing eager for the realization of this program, he 
naturally chose for his tales only such themes as 
brought out the finer traits of Jewish life, its de- 
votion, its domesticity, its religiousness, its 
ideals. The reader of these tales cannot but be 
impressed by the fact that there are so few dark 
spots in the life portrayed. Kompert was like 
the lover who sees only the beauties in his be- 
loved. There was but little of the critic in his 



IX. "CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO." 163 

mental constitution ; he does not view his sub- 
ject from every point; limpid, pure, pathetic, 
charming, picturesque though these etchings of 
a vanished existence be, and readily though we 
can understand and sympathize with the object 
of their author, still can we not but feel that he 
permitted himself to be circumscribed by limita- 
tions, through which if he had broken, he would 
have painted with a larger brush and given us a 
more comprehensive picture. It is here that 
Zangwill displays the broader outlook ; no less 
appreciative of the beauty, he recognizes also 
the ugliness; no less conscious of the lights, he 
notices likewise the shadows ; he sees both sides 
where Kompert saw only the one side, and for 
that reason the portrayals of the English writer 
of Ghetto stories are more likely to appeal as an 
unbiased representation than are the tales of 
his Bohemian predecessor. It is this ability of 
Zangwill to see all sides which is possibly his 
most striking trait as shall be shown at greater 
length farther on. The methods of these two 
masters in the portrayal of Jewish life repre- 
sent two types in the treatment of their com- 
mon subject; Kompert, a path-finder in this 
peculiar branch of fiction, undoubtedly had his 
reason for the course he pursued, as has been in- 
dicated, or it may have been a matter of tempera- 
ment as that other prominent Ghetto novelist, 
Karl Emil Franzos, claims, but there can be no 
doubt of the fact that ZangwilFs sweep is wider 



164 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

and that bj viewing this life from every side he 
has made a distinct step in advance of Kompert, 
the greatest continental word painter of the life 
of the Ghetto. 

Although Zangwill has written many short 
stories based upon incidents of the life in the 
Ghetto, yet will his fame as a Ghetto novelist 
rest ultimately upon the book which is the sub- 
ject of our present consideration, *' The Children 
of the Ghetto." No phase of life as it developed 
in the Jewish quarter and as it appears among 
the descendants of the inhabitants of the Ghetto, 
whose domicile is removed far from the squalid 
homes of their ancestors escapes him; all the 
features of Jewish life, social, communal and re- 
ligious are set forth by him in masterly touches. 

The book consists of two parts, the first being 
Ghetto sketches proper, that is, portrayals of 
scenes and incidents in the Ghetto itself, the 
second portion having for its theme the life of 
modern Jews and the institutions of Judaism in 
the England of the present day. The scene of the 
greater portion of the book is the so-called Lon- 
don Ghetto; strictly speaking, there never was 
a Ghetto in London in the same sense as in the 
countries of continental Europe; the Ghetto 
was the enforced dwelling-place of the Jews; 
mediaeval legislation of the church and the state 
prescribed certain portions of cities and towns 
within whose precincts the Jews might dwell ; 
they were forbidden to live anywhere else; this 



IX. " CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO." 165 

was the official Ghetto. In this literal acceptation 
of the term, the English metropolis never had a 
Ghetto; the Jews were never confined by law to 
any one specified quarter; but for all that a 
Ghetto in fact existed there; it was a voluntary 
Ghetto, it is true, but the same life, the same 
traits, habits, customs, superstitions, hopes, 
ideals, appeared there as in the actual official 
ghettos of continental cities. In truth, the in- 
habitants of the London Ghetto came almost 
altogether from these continental Jewish quar- 
ters and merely transplanted to their new home 
the life of their former habitation. The exclu- 
sion to which the Jews had been subjected for 
centuries threw them upon their own resources, 
and there grew up that peculiar life of the Ghetto 
which only he who has sympathetic insight into 
and full acquaintanceship with the facts can un- 
derstand. The onlooker saw merely the squalor, 
the pettiness, the ugliness, the repelh-nt features 
of that existence; he could not look beneath the 
surface, where he would have found the fine vir- 
tues of domesticity, the deep respect for learn- 
ing, the strong religious faith — qualities that in- 
vest with brilliancy even the most squalid life as 
far as externalities go. It is here that Zangwill 
is master. He knows his subject in its every 
detail. He is no mere panegyrist, as little as he 
is an apologist; he sees the virtues and the 
faults ; he would not hide the latter as little as 
he would minimize the former; it is for this 



166 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

reason that his chronicle so impresses the reader 
as a truthful portrayal; the men and women 
that appear in his pages are real men and 
women, with human failings and human excel- 
lencies, not figments of the imagination. The 
Ghetto was a " world in little ;" ** except for the 
infrequency of the more bestial types of men 
and women, Judea has always been a cosmos in 
little, and its pugilists and scientists, its philoso- 
phers and fences, its gymnasts and money- 
leaders, its scholars and stock brokers, its 
musicians, chess players, poets, comic singers, 
lunatics, saints, publicans, politicians, warriors, 
poltroons, mathematicians, actors, foreign corre- 
spondents, have always been in the first rank. 
Nihil humani alienum a se Judceus putat.^^ This 
expression of our novelist may be taken as the 
basis whereon he rears his structure ; it is indeed a 
microcosm that he analyses; the fine points he 
emphasizes, but the less commendable aspects he 
does not conceal. For example, he does not 
scruple to speak of the prejudices within Jewry, 
the animosity of class against class, Spanish 
Jews against German Jews, Pollak against Lit- 
vok ; he alludes to the gambling spirit, notably 
as it showed itself in playing in the " lotteree," 
and in the love for a game of cards ; the frequent 
squabbles, the " national chutzpah, which is va- 
riously translated enterprise, audacity, brazen 
impudence and cheek," and other such unpleas- 
ant traits are indicated in this composite picture. 



167 

but these are more than offset by the sympa- 
thetic portrayal of the domestic life in such 
touching scenes as the Friday night in Reb 
Shemuel's home, the beautiful intimacy between 
Hannah and her father, the tear-compelling in- 
cident of the Hyams' honeymoon, the fine scene 
between Hambourg, the aged scholar, and Stre- 
litzki, the struggling, poverty-stricken, young 
idealist, the many delicate touches showing the 
self-sacrificing love of the Jew for his own, and 
his charity toward the needy, by the description 
of the Sabbath as making "life a conscious, vol- 
untary sacrifice to an ideal whose reward was a 
touch of consecration once a week," and by the 
terse word of Reb Shemuel, that sums up the 
whole story of the Jewish home life, " the light 
of a true Jewish home will lead a man's foot- 
steps back to God ;" taken all in all, the faults fall 
far short of being very serious, while the virtues 
are glowing; Zangwill has drawn his scenes and 
characters with truthful pen ; in this first volume 
he has steered skillfully between the Scylla of 
chauvinism and the Charybdis of unjustified 
fault-finding; therefore, he is, in a truer sense 
than most other writers, the portrayer of the real 
life of the Ghetto. What truer description of the 
Ghetto has ever been given than this wherewith 
he concludes the chapter on the celebration of the 
Sabbath eve in the homes of the Ghetto deni- 
zens : "All around their neighbors sought distrac- 
tion in the blazing public-houses and their tipsy 



168 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

bellowiDga resounded through the streets and 
mingled with the Hebrew hymns. Here and 
there the voice of a beaten woman rose in the 
air. But no Son of the Covenant was among 
the revelers or the wife beaters ; they remained 
a chosen race, a peculiar people, redeemed at 
least from the grosser vices, a little human islet 
won from the waters of animalism by the genius 
of ancient engineers. For while the genius of 
the Greek or the Roman, the Egyptian or the 
Phoenician survives but in word and stone the 
Hebrew word alone was made flesh." 

Naturally it is understood by the reader of the 
first portion of the book that the author treats of 
an existence that has in great part disappeared, 
although the emigration of thousands from Rus- 
sia, Roumania and Galicia, caused by the heart- 
less treatment of the Jews in these lands, has 
filled with newcomers the old Ghetto district of 
London that was being depopulated by removals 
to other sections of the city. Likewise have 
similar voluntary Ghettos been formed in our 
American cities, notably l^ew York, Chicago, 
Philadelphia, Baltimore and Boston, where the 
life is still much like that portrayed in Zangwill's 
pages. Of course, the thousands upon thousands 
of Jews who live among their fellow-citizens of 
other faiths have left the Ghetto life behind 
them ; the complex features of the transitional 
stage in the existence of Jewry, such as the ad- 
justment to the new environment, the growth 



IX. " CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO." 169 

away from the cramped conditions of centuries, 
the accompanying changes in the interpretation 
of Judaism, the struggle between the old and 
the new, is another story, but to this, too, our 
author applies the keen dissecting power of his 
critical faculty and gives us the results of his ob- 
servations of the life of those whom in quaint 
phrase he styles the grandchildren of the Ghetto. 
But first let us examine somewhat more closely 
the picture he has painted of the life in the 
Ghetto proper. 

Scores of quaint customs had grown up among 
the Jews in the long course of their life and 
their travail among the peoples of the earth ; 
some of these customs were Biblical in origin; 
many had been borrowed from the different 
Asiatic, European and African nations among 
whom the Jews dwelt in later times and their 
origin being forgotten had become incorporated 
into the body of Jewish observance ; in the por- 
trayal of Ghetto life these customs naturally 
bulk largely on the horizon. The existence of 
the Jew was in large part concerned with the 
punctilious observance of religious custom and 
practice ; from morn till night his religion laid 
claim upon him; his religion was not merely 
for one day of the week, but every day had its 
religious obligations; in time this degenerated 
into formalism ; many customs continued to be 
observed whose reason for existence had long 
since passed away ; the minutise of religious 



170 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

ceremonialism often obscured the essentialB of 
religion, but they made the religion a very pres- 
ent thing to the observing Jew, and therefore 
in our sketches the many customs and obser- 
vances are referred to here, there and every- 
where. 

The superstitions, too, whereof the Ghetto 
Jew and particularly the Jewess has a full share 
are indicated ; such as the belief in the saving 
power of charms and amulets, in the blighting 
effect of the Evil Eye, in the verification of a 
statement by sneezing, in the wonder-working 
power of the chasid, in the superstitions con- 
nected with death, these darker elements, too, 
form an integral ingredient in that strange com- 
pound, Jewish life, and cannot be left out of ac- 
count if a true estimate is to be formed. Zang- 
will has produced a real chiaroscuro; and as in 
every picture of the kind, the shadows bring out 
the bright spots in stronger relief. 

Possibly one of the most striking features in 
Jewish life was the prevalence of and deep re- 
spect for learning; the Jews have always been a 
Culturvolk; there was never a time, were it ever so 
troubled, that provision of some kind was not 
made for the education of the young; the learned 
man was the pride of the community; the his- 
tory of Judaism since the fall of Jerusalem and 
the founding of the academies of Palestine and 
Babylon shortly thereafter is really the history 
of its scholars and thinkers ; the ideal of the 



IX. "CHILDREN OP THE GHETTO." 171 

Jewish community was the learned scholar, 
versed in the lore of the Bible, the Talmud, 
the philosophers, the casuists. Learning was 
not a trade ; it was pursued and loved for its 
own sake. Therefore it was not unusual to find 
the humblest, poorest and most unlikely in- 
dividuals possessed of great learning and keen 
dialectical powers. Throughout these pages 
this appears. Moses Ansell, the unsuccessful 
vendor of lemons, the recipient of charity, the 
sorry failure in the race for fortune and the 
good things of material life, but withal a scholar 
and possessed of scholarly aims, is not an ex- 
aggerated portrayal; the G-hetto had hundreds 
of such peddlars who were able to read the 
Talmud, small traders who delighted in learned 
discussions ; nowhere else were there such char- 
acters to be found ; in the Ghetto of New York 
a street trader who was selling soda water was 
found by a would-be customer so deeply im- 
mersed in a volume that he was lost to the 
world and had to be recalled by a vigorous 
exclamation to the things of this mundane 
sphere; the volume was found to be the Jewish 
philosophical classic, " The Guide of the Per- 
plexed," by Moses Maimonides; where else but 
in a Jewish Ghetto would one find a street 
merchant studying philosophy? Nor would 
such a case be isolated; the desire for learning 
permeated Jewish life ; even the most ignorant 
honored it; the shrewish rich Malka enter- 



172 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

tained at bottom a deep respect for her poor 
unsuccessful kinsman Moses Ansell. In spite 
of the misery and untowardness of their ex- 
ternal existence the Jews even in the Ghetto 
remained constant to the ideals of education 
and learning. The methods were often wrong, 
but the intention was right; the highest hope 
of the father for his son was that he should be- 
come a rabbi, a great light of learning in Israel ; 
the greatest ambition of the rich man was to 
marry his daughter to a scholar. This idealistic 
strain was the saving element in the century- 
long misery which our author calls in his proem, 
" that long cruel night in Jewry which coin- 
cides with the Christian Era.'' 

From what has been said it will have been gath- 
ered that Zangwill is endowed with the power 
of gazing into the very heart of things Jew- 
ish. Either in propria persona or by using his 
various characters as mouthpieces he sets forth 
the many varied views that are prevalent in 
Judaism to-day as to its aims and purposes, its 
significance and hopes. All shades of opinion 
are represented through the medium of the 
different characters ; uncompromising orthodoxy 
with its rigid adherence to every dictum of the 
rabbinical law as codified in the Shulchan Arukh 
and the protest against this that culminated in 
what is known as the Reform Movement; the 
belief in the return to Palestine as the consum- 
mation of Judaism's hopes and the larger uni- 



rX. "CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO." 173 

versalistic outlook that interprets the messianic 
expectation of Judaism to he not the re-estah- 
lishment of the Jewish state in Palestine, hut 
the realization of the prophetic hopes of one 
God and one humanity and the establishment 
of the reign of justice, righteousness and peace 
on earth ; the scoffing skepticism of the un- 
believing race Jew who holds nothing sacred 
but his own material welfare and the reverent 
idealism of the young collegian to whom the 
great story of his faith's wondrous past and the 
high possibility of its future appeal with mighty 
force; in a word, the strange complex phe- 
nomenon presented by Judaism at the close of 
the nineteenth century is painted with a mas- 
ter's brush, and of all the colors requisite for the 
making of the truthful picture scarcely one is 
wanting. Then, too, how with keen satire he 
exposes the shortcomings of modern Jewish 
life in England, whether now it be in its syn- 
agogal institutions, its social manners or its pro- 
fessional charities. But not only is he mordant 
critic of the faults of the Jews, but also positive 
thinker on the intent and philosophy of Juda- 
ism. In many an epigrammatic utterance he 
sums up in a few words the Jewish interpreta- 
tion of life, as when he speaks of the " note of 
spiritualized common sense which has been the 
keynote of Judaism," and again in words of 
similar effect, " Judaism is so human. . . . 
No abstract metaphysics, but a lovable way of 



174 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

living the common life sanctified by the centu- 
ries;'' here one of his characters says: "The 
theory of Judaism has always been the spirit- 
ualization of the material," and there another 
speaks of the Jewish race as having "antici- 
pated Positivism in vitalizing history by making 
it religion/' and how the history of the Jews is 
illumined as by a flash in the brilliant epigram 
" The people of Christ has been the Christ of 
the peoples," or by that other utterance spoken 
by Strelitzki, the idealistic dreamer endowed 
with a prophetic soul, " to be a nation without a 
fatherland, but with a mother tongue, Hebrew — 
there is the spiritual originality, the miracle of 
history;" or again by the passionate exclama- 
tion of Raphael, " our mere existence since the 
Diaspora is a protest." Great gift indeed this 
to be able to subsume in such brilliant generali- 
zations the story of centuries of endeavor and 
the true inwardness of the practical philosophy 
of Judaism. 

The publication of this book and in a still 
greater degree its dramatization were the occa- 
sions for heated discussions 'pro and con as to the 
propriety and wisdom of producing books and 
plays of this kind that bring out the peculiarities 
of Jewish life. It is claimed that Zangwill's 
picture of Jewish life is unjust to the modern 
Jew, that the non-Jewish reader is likely to re- 
ceive a wrong impression of Judaism and Jewry 
from these pages. I have always thought that 



175 

when Zangwill wrote the opening chapter of the 
second volume of his " Children of the Ghetto," 
entitled ** The Christmas Dinner," in which the 
guests of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Goldsmith discuss 
E. A.'s book, Mordecai Josephs, he forecasted the 
comments on his own book in a certain section of 
Jewish society whose chief characteristic is a 
snobbish chauvinism that causes them to squirm 
at the memories evoked. Such naturally con- 
demn without stint a work like this which utters 
many unpalatable truths; and why? Because 
they cannot penetrate into the heart of the au- 
thor's purpose, because they cannot understand 
that the best advocate of a good cause is he who 
by contrasts makes the finer elements of that 
cause stand forth the more clearly, because their 
ear has not caught what the author seems to me 
to have declared to the world in those pages, in 
words whose purport might be as follows : 
" Whatever is objectionable in this strange world 
that I have portrayed is the result of the exclu- 
sion into which the Jew was forced during cen- 
turies of intolerance and persecution. But in 
spite of this exclusion and oppression, see what 
noble traits have been developed, strengthened 
and preserved, the religiosity of this people, the 
fidelity of its men, the chastity of its women ; 
see the respect in which learning was held; see 
the generous charity of the poor towards one 
another, to say nothing of that of the rich ; see 
the nobility of the domestic life ;" nay, the un- 



176 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

biased lover of truth cannot but feel grateful that 
Zangwill has preserved in these pages the char- 
acteristics of a fast vanishing life ; thank God, 
that the enforced Ghetto has disappeared from 
the domains of the free nations of the earth ; the 
voluntary Ghettos in the great cities, it is true, 
still continue the old life, but they, too, with the 
passing years, will go the way of all things 
earthly; the Ghetto life has affected the devel- 
opment of Jewish character for better or for 
worse; this development our author has pre- 
sented with great ability and precision. His 
portrayal will stand ever as a real contribution 
to the subject, for, even though in the fictional 
form, it is a study drawn from the life and has 
all the similitude of truth. 

The second volume, " The Grandchildren of 
the Ghetto," falls below the first. When Zang- 
will writes of the Ghetto life he writes as a sym- 
pathetic observer and an unbiased historical fic- 
tionist ; when he writes of modern Jewish life 
in the so-called west end of London, he is the 
critic who has an eye for the faults, and can de- 
tect few, if any, virtues ; the Jew of the past 
(for that is what the Ghetto Jew practically is) 
he writes of con amove; the Jew of the present 
he sees through a glass critically. Without 
doubt there is much to criticise and find fault 
with in the management of the public, religious 
and charitable institutions, without doubt in ad- 
justing themselves to the changed conditions 



IX. "children op the ghetto." 177 

subsequent to the removal from the Ghetto the 
Jews have fallen short of satisfying the demands 
of the highest life, without doubt the innuendos 
of Esther and the passionate outbursts of Strel- 
itzki on the lack of the true religious spirit 
among English Jews are justified by many facts 
in the case, but yet the reader of this second vol- 
ume cannot but feel that the author has changed 
his base appreciably ; he is evidently out of all 
sympathy with present day Judaism in England ; 
if it has any good points (and some it certainly 
has), he will not see them; we feel ourselves 
rather in the company of Zangwill, the critic, 
than in that of Zangwill, the novelist. When 
he returns with Esther to the Ghetto, the old 
spell begins to work again and the geniality 
of treatment that constitutes the charm of the 
first volume reappears. Still with it all, we 
close the book with the feeling that dissatisfied 
as the author is with the conditions in Jewish 
life in London of to-day, yet he sees hope in the 
future ; the transitional period with its Henry 
Goldsmiths, its Sydney Grahams, its Percy Sa- 
villes, its Leonard James, is a necessary incident 
in the wondrous tale of Jewish life ; but Juda- 
ism has always had its saving remnant, enthusi- 
asts like Raphael Leon, idealists like Strelitzki, 
self-sacrificing hearts like Esther Ansell, the re- 
found Esther ; the critic of the present turns into 
the dreamer of the future and in the last chapter 
of the book, at the close of the realistic descrip- 



178 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

tion of the service on the day of atonement there 
occurs that eloquent burst which we cannot but 
feel expresses the author's own attitude and is 
significant of his own feeling. I may well set 
down the passage here ; the service of the long 
day had drawn to its close; the declaration of 
the unity of God had been spoken " and then in 
the brief instant while the congregation with 
ever increasing rhapsody, blessed God till the 
climax came with the seven- fold declaration, 
' The Lord he is God,' the whole history of her 
strange unhappy race flashed through her mind 
in a whirl of resistless emotion. She was over- 
whelmed by the thought of its sons in every 
corner of the earth proclaiming to the somber 
twilight sky the belief for which its generations 
had lived and died — the Jews of Russia sobbing 
it forth in their pale of enclosure, the Jews of 
Morocco in their mellah, and of South Africa in 
their tents by the diamond mines; the Jews of 
the !N"ew World in great free cities, in Canadian 
backwoods, in South American savannahs; the 
Australian Jews in the sheep-farms and the 
gold-fields and in the mushroom cities ; the 
Jews of Asia in their reeking quarters begirt by 
barbarian populations. . , . The grey dusk 
palpitated with floating shapes of prophets and 
martyrs, scholars and sages and poets full of 
yearning love and pity, lifting hands of benedic- 
tion. By what great high-roads and queer by- 
ways of history had they traveled hither, these 



IX. " CHILDREN OP THE GHETTO.*' 179 

wandering Jews, sated with contempt, these 
shrewd, eager fanatics, these sensual ascetics, 
these human paradoxes, adaptive to every en- 
vironment, energizing in every field of activity, 
omnipresent like some great natural force, inde- 
structible and almost inconvertible, surviving with 
the immovable optimism that overlay all their 
poetic sadness — Babylon and Carthage, Greece 
and Rome ; involuntarily financing the Crusades, 
overthrowing the inquisition, illusive of all baits, 
unshaken by all persecutions, at once the greatest 
and meanest of races ? Had the Jew come so 
far only to break down at last, sinking in mo- 
rasses of modern doubt, and irresistibly dragging 
down with him the Christian and the Moslem; 
or was he yet fated to outlast them both, in con- 
tinuous testimony to a hand molding incom- 
prehensibly the life of humanity? Would Israel 
develop into the sacred phalanx, the nobler 
brotherhood that Raphael Leon had dreamed of, 
or would the race that had first proclaimed — 
through Moses for the ancient world, through 
Spinoza for the modern — 

* One God, one Law, one Element,' ^ 

become in the larger, wilder dream of the Rus- 
sian idealist, the main factor in 

* One far-off divine event 
To which the whole Creation moves ? ' 

" The roar dwindled to a solemn silence, as 



180 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

though in answer to her questionings. Then the 
ram's horn shrilled — a stern, long drawn-out 
note, that rose at last into a mighty peal of 
sacred jubilation. The atonement was com- 
plete." 

By this work then Zangwill has won for him- 
self a place in the foremost rank of the Ghetto 
novelists, yes, I do not hesitate to say, the first 
place; he is an artist of consummate ability and 
as an artist has drawn a picture that shall live 
long after the time when the peculiar life that 
he has pictured shall have disappeared altogether 
from the earth. That life was the outcome of 
persecution ; with the advance of freedom the 
complexion of Jewish life changes; in the free 
countries of the world the Jew is no longer 
a being apart politically ; in the habits of life 
he is like his neighbors of other faiths; re- 
ligiously alone is he different ; it is a far cry from 
the Ghetto Jew of Zangwill's pages to the Jew 
of America's reform congregations ; our novelist 
has performed a notable service for the history 
of Jewish culture by casting in a fixed form this 
disappearing life and by interpreting in so sym- 
pathetic a spirit its many-sidedness. But this 
was only the beginning of endeavor in this field 
of literary effort. Besides this longer work our 
author has from time to time given to the world 
short stories and sketches of that same life, to a 
brief consideration of some of which I now 
turn. 



IX. " CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO." 181 

The year following the appearance of the 
" Children of the Ghetto " witnessed the publica- 
tion of a little volume containing four short 
stories entitled " Ghetto Tragedies." These are, 
indeed, remarkable specimens of the story- 
teller's art. The first two, " Satan Mekatrig" 
and " The Diary of a Meshumad," are psycho- 
logical studies of a high order, the former being 
a presentation of the making of an unbeliever 
through the influence of the spirit of doubt and 
mocking skepticism and the final conquest of 
this spirit by the persisting infiuences of early 
training and inherited faith, and the latter set- 
ting forth the whole gamut of emotions through 
which an apostate from Judaism passes owing to 
the subtle infiuences of memory and re-awakened 
attachment to the faith of his fathers that come 
upon him towards the end of his life. In its 
way this story is as strong as anything in the 
language. The situations are tragic. The ac- 
tion moves with all the rapidity of a drama of 
avenging fate. The horror of the situation lies 
in the fact that the apostate's son who has been 
reared in the orthodox Greek Church, and has, 
of course, no knowledge of his father's Jewish 
origin, is a bigoted Greek Catholic and becomes 
the editor of the most virulent anti-Semitic news- 
paper in Eussia ; it is the son's articles that in- 
cite the Russian mobs to violence and to attacks 
on the Jewish quarters, and the poignant agony 
through which, the father who has returned 



182 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

secretly to his people passes, is portrayed in burn- 
ing touches that lay bare the innermost secrets 
of a tortured soul. In this story, too, Zangwill 
displays his great power of objective presenta- 
tion ; the arguments of the enemies of the Jews 
are placed in the mouth of the Paul, the anti- 
Semitic son, and the defense of the persecuted 
people is uttered by the apostate who pretends, 
however, to take this position merely for argu- 
ment's sake, as he does not dare reveal the truth 
to his son. 

Not all apostates are like this, however, and 
to complete the picture, the author introduces 
the figure of another Jew by birth, the physician, 
ITicholas Alexandrovitch, who has no such 
qualms of conscience and mocks at the re- 
awakened memories and longings of the central 
character of the story. The meshumad is not to 
be diverted, however. His heart longs for his 
people and his faith, " the simple, sublime faith 
of my people." It draws him like a magnet. 
In direct, powerful strokes the diary hurries us 
on to the climax, the murderous attack on the 
Jewish quarter of Odessa where the meshumad 
has taken refuge. The story closes with an ac- 
count of the oncoming of the mob, " Great 
God! They have knives and guns and their 
leader is flourishing a newspaper and shouting 
out something from it. There are soldiers 
among them and sailors, native and foreign, and 
mad mushiks. "Where are the police ? . . . 



IX. " CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO.'* 183 

The mob is passing under mj window. God 
pity me, it is PauVs words they art shouting. They 
have passed. No one thinks of me. Thank 
God, I am safe. I am safe from these demons. 
What a narrow escape ! Ah, God, they have cap- 
tured Eabbi Isaac and are dragging him along 
by his white beard towards the barracks. My 
place is by his side. I will rouse my brethren. 
We will turn on these dogs and rend them. 
Proshchai, my beloved diary, farewell. I go to 
proclaim the Unity." 

The closing story of this collection, " The Sab- 
bath Breaker," consisting of but a few pages, is 
a veritable gem ; it is the very perfection of the 
art of story writing ; it is a classic, worthy of' a 
place among the highest products of the fic- 
tionist's skill. The tale of a mother's devotion 
has never been more beautifully told. In the 
apt figure of the Biblical sage, it may, indeed, 
be spoken of as " an apple of gold in a setting of 
silver." 

In the "Dreamers of the Ghetto," Zangwill 
has reached the high-water mark of his art. 
Although not fiction in the strict sense of the 
term, yet the most of these sketches are cast in 
the fictional form, and hence, even if based on 
historical happenings, they may be included 
properly in the estimation of our author as an 
imaginative delineator of Jewish themes. !N'o- 
wliere does Zangwill's genius shine more bril- 
liantly than here. Taking striking and roman- 



184 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

tic incidents from Jewish history as his subjects, 
he sets forth through this medium the wondrous 
story of Jewish effort, fault and aspiration ; as 
in the tales we have already considered, we find 
him here also in the guise of the truth-seeker; 
traits admirable and qualities reprehensible he 
portrays with unprejudiced candor; his is the 
objective standpoint, blinded neither by preju- 
dice to merit nor by partisanship to fault ; in a 
word, he is the artist above all things, and the 
artist, to be worthy of his calling, must be able 
to view his subject from every side and produce 
the composite picture that shall contain in solu- 
tion all the elements; as he himself says : "This 
book was written for the world, for Christian 
and Jew alike. The artist, as artist, is of all 
parties and none ; he is touched by the beauty, 
the pathos, the tragedy, the wonder of all crea- 
tion. He must stand alone; for him union is 
weakness. But because he is of no sect, his 
vision may be of help to all sects, his search for 
truth from his lonely watch-tower may haply 
reveal what both partisan and antagonist may 
miss." 

Although the book is composed of many 
sketches, detailing incidents extending over cen- 
turies of striving from the sixteenth to the nine- 
teenth and laid in widely separated localities, 
Venice and E-ome, Amsterdam and Smyrna, 
Galicia and Germany, London and Jerusalem, 
yet is the one purpose running through the 



IX. "CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO." 185 

book made plain from the choice of subjects, 
this purpose being the search for a reconciling 
element between the conflicting tendencies in 
the human spirit, that discord between the stern 
demands of righteousness on the one hand and 
the passionate longing for beauty on the other, 
or, to use a phrase now much in vogue, the 
discord of Hebraism and Hellenism. These 
conflicts of soul are presented in varying guises, 
of which I may mention the opening sketch, 
"The Child of the Ghetto," and the closing 
tale, " Chad Gadya," a modernized version of 
Ecclesiastes, which, having as its central charac- 
ter the child of the opening tale, now grown 
into a world-weary youth, gives a unity to the 
book; "Joseph the Dreamer," poor victim 
caught between the upper millstone of his own 
blindness to the inner significance of his inher- 
ited faith and the nether millstone of man's in- 
tolerance and therefore crushed to death; "Uriel 
Acosta," representing another phase of the con- 
flict; "The Maker of Lenses," luminous study 
of Spinoza; "Maimon the Fool and E'athan the 
Wise," types of differing tendencies in eighteenth 
century Judaism ; the striking essay on Heine, 
" From the Mattress Grave," a tour deforce quite 
as unique and ingenuous as anything in the lan- 
guage; "The Master of the N"ame," unusual 
conglomerate of superstition and aspiration ; 
" The Conciliator of Christendom," pathetic 
picture of the tragical fate of the world- 



186 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

improver; and notably also the epilogue, "A 
Modern Scribe in Jerusalem," and the appendix, 
** The Address to the American Jew," in both 
of which the author appears in propria persona; 
conflicts between dreams and realities, strange 
spirit wrestlings, tragedies of the idealist, great 
themes sympathetically treated ; our author here 
finds himself in congenial company, for he too is 
one of the dreamers of the Ghetto, as late develop- 
ments in his life have proved. In the sketch, 
"A Modern Scribe in Jerusalem," the scribe 
suggests a solution of this eternal conflict that 
has been so strikingly illustrated in the inner 
contentions within Judaism in the nineteenth 
century. Since this sketch is presented in the 
form of epilogue to the book, we are justified in 
considering the standpoint of the scribe the 
author's own ; the words to which I refer are as 
follows: "The time had now come for a new 
religious expression, a new language for the old 
everlasting emotions, in terms of the modern 
cosmos; a religion that should contradict no 
fact and check no inquiry : so that children 
should grow up with no distracting divorce 
from their parents and their past, with no break 
in the sanctities of childhood, which carry on to 
old age something of the freshness of early sen- 
sation, and are a fount of tears in the desert of 
life. The ever-living, darkly laboring Hebraic 
spirit of love and righteous aspirations, the 
Holy Ghost that had inspired Judaism and 



IX. "children of the ghetto/' 187 

Christianity and moved equally in Mohammed- 
ism and Protestantism, must now quicken and 
inform the new learning, which still lay dead 
and foreign outside humanity. . . . The 
animality of average humanity made for hope 
rather than despair, when one remembered from 
what it had developed. It was for man in this 
laboring cosmos to unite himself with the stream 
that made for goodness and beauty. A song 
came to him of the true God, whose name is 
one with Past, Present and Future." 

As to the question whether Zangwill gives a 
true interpretation of the interesting episodes 
from Jewish history that he depicts, I believe 
there can be but one answer. Although he 
takes some liberties, notably in the Spinoza 
sketch as he himself says in his preface, yet 
with the sure touch of genius, he has grasped 
the salient points and set them forth clearly, 
sanely, objectively. He is as a usual thing so 
exact in his historical facts and references that 
it is strange that he makes the mistake of speak- 
ing of the author of the Shulchan Arukh as Ben- 
jamin instead of Joseph Caro in his tale about 
The Turkish Messiah. The appendix to the 
book, entitled " To the American Jew," being 
fact and not fiction, is in many ways the most 
interesting chapter since it brings the problem 
down to our own day and gives the author's 
own views on moot points in modern Jewish 
life. In his own brilliant way he sums up in an 



188 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

epigram the alternatives of Jewish aspiration 
represented on the one hand by the Zionistic 
movement and on the other by the reform move- 
ment when he says "either a common country 
or a common idea." He does not permit his 
own sympathies with Zionism to obscure his 
vision ; he presents both sides fairly and with- 
out prejudice, and here a^ain he shows himself 
the true artist. He states the conflict, he pre- 
sents the problem; the future will have to give 
the answer. We who believe that the mission 
of Judaism lies in the universal spiritual ideal 
of the prophets and not in a resurrected Jewish 
state, being thus opposed unalterably to the 
political Zionists with whom our author has 
openly allied himself recently, cannot, despite 
the diiferences of thought that here divide us, 
but be appreciative of the lucid presentation of 
the vexed Jewish question that is given us here 
by our foremost litterateur, 

A number of other Jewish writers of more or 
less power have followed in Zangwill's footsteps 
and turned to the Ghetto for material for stories. 
Many there are who regard this tendency with 
dread, notably that large class of Jewish chau- 
vinists to whom I have referred already and who 
wish every mention of the Ghetto and all that 
it implies and indicates buried far out of sight. 
It is interesting to note that this attitude of 
mind dates back to the time of the appearance 
of the very first Ghetto novel, Heine's wonderful 



IX. "children of the ghetto." 189 

fragment, *^Der Rabbi von Bacharach.'^ A 
writer in the AUgemeine Zeitung des JudenthumSy 
in the year 1840, attacked this sketch of Jewish 
life viciously and adduced the same arguments 
as do the latter-day critics of the modern Ghetto 
novelists; his cry was to let the dead past bury 
its dead ; he asked of what benefit is it to dwell 
upon a phase of life that is outgrown ; with this 
attitude the unbiased student of human institu- 
tions can have but little sympathy; for good or 
for ill the centuries of life in the Ghetto have 
affected the development of Jewish character, 
and the truthful presentation of that develop- 
ment is certainly legitimate not only for the his- 
torian, but for the fictionist. The only question 
to be considered is whether the picture drawn 
leaves a true or a false impression. At some 
length I have attempted to answer this question 
as far as the leading Ghetto novelist in English 
literature is concerned, and I turn now to a sim- 
ilar though necessarily briefer consideration of 
the other contemporary writers who are working 
that same vein. First in order of time and for that 
matter of ability after Zangwill is Samuel Gordon, 
the author of two volumes of short Ghetto stories, 
"A Handful of Exotics" and "The Daughters 
of Shem," and a lengthy novel, " The Sons of the 
Covenant." Gordon writes with a sympathetic 
pen ; the sad side of the Jewish misere through 
the centuries appeals to him most strongly, and 
in his two volumes of short stories it is the tear- 



190 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

compelling features of the life of the Ghetto that 
he pictures with all that accuracy which inti- 
mate knowledge alone can give; although his 
stories for the most part are to be characterized 
as being graceful rather than powerful, yet in 
some of these sketches he evinces great strength, 
and rises to a splendid height of tragical force, 
as in the tales, *' The Alien Immigrant," " Out 
of the Land of Bondage," " Whose Judgment 
is Justice," " To the Glory of God," and " The 
Ambush of Conscience." He is well equipped 
for his task ; the mention throughout of the 
customs, habits and superstitions of the Ghetto 
betray his undoubted familiarity with the life he 
portrays; this being true, it is strange that in 
the English rendition of the traditional marriage 
formula in the story, " The Ambush of Con- 
science," he makes so strange a slip as to include 
the words, " as a wife," when the Hebrew really 
is, '' Be thou consecrated to me by this ring ac- 
cording to the Law of Moses and Israel ;" also, 
that, influenced by the conception of the Phari- 
sees current in the Christian world, he should 
make a statement to this eftect, " they were chas- 
sidim whose prototypes were the Pharisees of 
old, and who believe in a religion made up of 
long caftans, broad waist girdles and love locks, 
and generally play antics with the grand old 
faith of Sinai;" although it is true that even the 
Talmud denounces certain classes of Pharisees, 
yet is the usual identification of Pharisaism with 



IX. "CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO." 191 

religious hypocricy, the result of New Testament 
teaching, unjust to the real significance of the 
teachings of that great party in ancient Israel, 
and to identify that degenerate religious move- 
ment, Chassidism, with Pharisaism, is to go 
wide of the mark. I cannot but consider it a 
mistake both on the part of the writer under 
present consideration and of Zangwill to trans- 
late into English typical Ghetto terms which 
were always spoken in Hebrew or jargon ; the 
forcefulness of expressions like am haaretz, azh 
ponim and the like is lost altogether in their 
English dress, " man of the earth '' (which by 
the way is a wrong rendering), "impudence 
face;'' they should be given in their original 
form and explained in a glossary; the same is 
certainly the case with such terms as Kaddish, 
Arba Kanfoth, Zeeno ureenoh; to the initiated 
they are perfectly intelligible; in their English 
version, the Sanctification, Four Corner Gar- 
ments, The Go and See Book, they are intelligi- 
ble neither to the initiated (except by an eifort) 
nor to the uninitiated ; hence, all such typical 
expressions should be left as they were uttered 
by the people in the Ghetto. 

Gordon understands the Jewish character well, 
as is apparent throughout his stories. Let me 
quote but a few expressions which indicate this 
clearly. How well he sums up the whole story 
of the steadfastness of centuries in the face of 
persecution when he makes an old man appeal as 



192 THE JEW IN ENaLISH FICTION. 

follows to the ruflSans who wish to force him to 
eat leavened bread in the Passover, during an at- 
tack by the mob on the Jewish quarter, " Have 
mercy on me ! kill me ! but do not make me 
transgress the commandment ! '' and how keen, 
an insight into the habit of mind of the Rus- 
sian Jew he shows in his remark about " the 
faculty of yielding to circumstances which is at 
once the vice and the virtue of the co-religionists 
he had left behind in the Pale of settlement ;^' 
the attitude of resignation of the pious Jew 
under the visitation of dread calamity appears 
from the unmurmuring acceptance of misfortune 
by the poor stricken mother in the powerful 
tale, "Whose Judgment is Justice;" a young 
woman has lost her babe and cannot be com- 
forted; her tears flow without ceasing; the old 
grandmother who has lost all her children under 
the most harrowing circumstances relates the 
manner of their taking off, and as the young 
woman hears this tale of supreme woe, her own 
trouble seems trivial, " truly, it is said, that a 
small grief melts away in the telling of a greater ;" 
the resignation of the Jewess finds expression in 
the words, " I begrudge thee not thy tears ! but lest 
thou shouldst arraign Heaven and thereby bring 
sin upon thy head, I would have thee remember 
that whomsoever God loves He chastises. And 
he has loved me very much ; " the great respect 
for learning shown by Anshel Markovitz, the 
rich shopkeeper in the tale " The Daughters of 



IX. "children of the ghetto." lOS- 

Shem," and his desire to ally himself with a 
learned family by the marriage of his daughter 
Zillah to Enoch Gontaller, the son of the re- 
nowned Eabbi Talmudist and himself a young 
man of brilliant attainments, reflect truthfully 
the sentiment of the Jew of the time and en- 
vironment described; in introducing the young 
man to his daughter he says simply, "Zillah, 
this is Enoch Gontaller. When you were yet 
in your cradle his father's name had already 
traveled to the four corners of the world. It is a 
name to be proud of, and the son is worthy of 
his father; need I say more?" And how well 
the author has grasped the high aspirations of 
Jewish thought is apparent from passag*^s such 
as that containing the exhortation of the teacher 
to the wayward boy Aaron in the story " The 
Conquest of Aaron Pittrick," "Aaron, have you 
forgotten that God has made us a nation of 
priests? He has driven us out of our land so 
that we might make the whole world His altar 
— a sanctuary where we are to teach ourselves 
and our brothers to offer sacrifice. And what 
are we to off'er up ? N^ot our love, our abnegation, 
our truth, these we are to keep for ourselves ; but 
we are to render up our hatreds, our evil 
passions, our falsehoods, because God is a great 
Magician and can make metal out of dross and 
ornaments out of abominations. And that is 
what we learn from our high traditions, from 
the examples of our great men, and that is why 



194 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

I would have you study their words night aud 
day, till you have caught the echo of their loud- 
uttered testimony. A nation of priests are we 
to be, and there shall be no falsehood and 
hatred amongst us." 

The two tales, " Toward the Sunrise *' and 
^^ On the Koad to Zion/' present the two aspects 
of the Zionist movement, the former the en- 
thusiasm of its devoted adherents, the latter its 
impracticability ; the closing tale in the volume 
"The Daughters of Shem," entitled "The 
Leader," is an excellent little study of various 
tendencies among modern Jews, the laxity of 
the rich race Jew and the compelling power of 
the Jewish heritage. 

Gordon's next venture in this field was his 
novel " The Sons of the Covenant ; a Tale of 
London Jewry." This story of the develop- 
ment of the two brothers, Philip and Leuw 
Lipcott, has all the better characteristics of the 
shorter tales already considered; that same note 
of intelligent sympathy is struck here and the 
same evidence given of full familiarity with the 
life and experiences detailed; but our author 
has grown in the powor of presentation and has 
produced a charming tale whose prevailing note 
is the devotion of brother and friend; the better 
side of human nature is kept ever to the fore; 
the author sees his fellow-men through kindly 
glasses. The purpose of the novel, in as far as 
it has a purpose beyond the development of 



\:i, "children of the ghetto." 12 "^ 

the characters and the love-story, is the set- 
ting forth of Philip's scheme for the uplifting 
of the inhabitants of the Ghetto out of theh' 
misery and degradation to a higher plane ; th.'^t 
an institute planned along the ',laes suggested 
will do much toward making the lives of such 
as may be brought within the radius of its in- 
fluence fuller, better and fairer, and will in great 
part solve the perplexing problems arising from 
the poverty and the congestion of the Ghetto, 
there can be little doubt, for the Toynbee Halls 
and the Hull Houses, foundations in England 
and America of similar tendencies to the imagi- 
nary institute of our tale have done untold 
good ; whether the suggestion in Mr. Gordon's 
novel will find realization as did Walter Besant's 
similar scheme in ''All Sorts and Conditions of 
Men" remains to be seen; at any rate he has 
spoken a noble word and spoken it well. The 
particularly touching portion of the book is the 
relation between Leuw and Old Christopher^ 
the Jewish youth and the Christian old man • 
there is a kinship of human nature that draws 
true hearts together despite the differences of 
sect, race and age. 

As Zangwill and Gordon find their subject- 
matter in the London Ghetto, so Abraham Ca- 
han exploits the I^ew York Ghetto for materia] 
for his stories of which he has published two 
volumes, " Yekl " and " The Imported Bride- 
groom and Other Stories " It is a very unlovely 



196 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

picture that he paints in the former volume ; 
sordidness, squalor, wretchedness, permeate the 
pages ; human nature at its worst and meanest 
is laid bare; it cannot be denied that Cahan pos- 
sesses a certain strength, and if his object was to 
present the life wherewith he deals in all its 
ugliness and unsavoriness, he has succeeded ; 
none of the romance of the Ghetto here that 
breathes in Zangwill's and Gordon s pages ; if 
there was any beauty at all in the old life of the 
Jews within the Ghetto walls, there is certainly 
none in this latest of the Ghettos of the world, 
the congested, swarming, filthy district in the 
East Side of the American metropolis; the trans- 
planted Russian Jew as he appears in these 
pages has assumed all the objectionable traits of 
the lower element of the American population 
in whose midst he dwells; but yet in spite of 
the horror which cannot but fill one at the life 
here portrayed, a feeling of pity comes over the 
reader for these wretched creatures who, victims 
of tyranny and persecution in their old home, 
have found in their new home beyond the seas 
but want and misery. Let him who prates of 
the wealth of the Jew spend but a day among 
the denizens of this wretched district and he will 
learn to his amazement that there are tens of 
thousands of this people living in a state of 
poverty and misery the like of which not the 
wildest flights of fancy have pictured. For one 
Jewish Dives there are an hundred Lazarus ; sta- 



IX. ^^ CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO/^ 197 

tistics prove the Jews to be the poorest com- 
munity in the world. 

It was inevitable that the New York Ghetto 
would furnish some writer or writers subjects 
for tales. The local color that the modern au- 
thor is always in search of is too pronounced to 
have escaped the seeker. It is a peculiar life 
and comes well within the province of the fic- 
tionist. If the question be asked eui honof the 
only answer that can be returned is that into the 
true view of the story-teller's function this ques- 
tion does not enter ; the fictionist is not a moral- 
ist; the only consideration is whether his por- 
trayal is faithful to the life; Cahan is au fait 
with his subject; he knows the people with 
whom he is concerned. No fair products can be 
expected to grow out of a plague-infected spot, 
and the New York Ghetto is nothing short of 
this; the struggle for mere existence is a fierce 
battle with outrageous fortune; little wonder 
that many of the swarming thousands huddled 
in the noisome tenements become almost de- 
humanized; little wonder that the student of 
sociology and the kindly philanthropist stagger 
at the problem here presented ; the Ghetto of 
New York and in a lesser degree the Ghettos of 
the other large American cities are the sore 
spots in American Jewish life; the picture that 
Cahan has given of the New York Ghetto is not 
overdrawn ; " it (the New York Ghetto) is one 
of the most densely populated spots on the face 



198 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

of the earth — a seething human sea fed by 
streams, streamlets and rills of immigration 
flowing from all the Yiddish-speaking centers of 
Europe. Hardly a block but shelters Jews frona 
every nook and corner of Eussia, Poland, Gal- 
icia, Hungary, Houmania; Lithuanian Jews, 
Yolhynian Jews, south Kussian Jews, Bessa- 
rabian Jews; Jews crowded out of the pale of 
Jewish settlement; Eussified Jews expelled 
from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kieff or Saratoff; 
Jewish runaways from justice; Jewish refugees 
from crying political and economical injustice; 
people torn from a hard-gained foothold in life 
and from deep-rooted attachments by the caprice 
of intolerance or the wiles of demagoguery, in- 
nocent scapegoats of a guilty government for its 
outraged populace to misspend its blind fury 
upon, students shut out of the Russian universi- 
ties and come to these shores in quest of learn- 
ing, artisans, mierchants, teachers, rabbis, artists, 
beggars — all come in search of fortune. iN'or is 
there a tenement house but harbors in its bosom 
specimens of all the whimsical metamorphoses 
wrought upon the children of Israel of the 
great exodus by the vicissitudes of life in 
this their promised land of to-day. You 
find there Jews born to plenty whom the 
new conditions have delivered up to the clutches 
of penury; Jews reared in the straits of need 
who have here risen to prosperity; good 
people morally degraded in the struggle for sue- 



IX. "children of the -ghetto." 199 

cess amid an unwonted environment; moral 
outcasts lifted from the mire, purified and im- 
bued with self-respect ; educated men and wo- 
men with their intellectual polish tarnished in 
the inclement weather of adversity; ignorant sons 
of toil grown enlightened — in fine, people with all 
sorts of antecedents, tastes, habits, inclinations, 
and speaking all sorts of sub-dialects of the 
same jargon, thrown pell-mell into one social 
caldron — a human hodge-podge with its com- 
ponent parts changed but not yet formed into 
one homogeneous whole." 

As for the tale of " Yekl " itself, there is but 
little in commendation that can be said of it; 
" Yekl," or " Jake," according to the American- 
ized version of his original name, is an uncouth 
young emigrant versed in the lingo of the prize- 
fight ring, a worshiper at the shrine of the 
champion bruiser John L. Sullivan, a frequenter 
of dance halls, a sort of Ghetto " tough ; " the 
other characters of the book are not much more 
delectable ; there are but few bright spots in the 
picture; Cahan, bothin this longer story and in a 
number of short tales that have appeared in 
magazines now and then, has made it a point to 
show the inhabitants of the Ghetto in a repulsive 
guise ; his sketches are relieved by scarcely a 
glimpse of nobler characteristics; he is the realist 
among writers of Ghetto tales, using this term 
in its popularly accepted meaning as designating 
that school of writers that delve into the purlieus 



200 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

of human life and spread their literary harpy- 
feast before the eyes of the world. 

True as this statement is as applied to some 
stories of Cahan yet must it be modified in refer- 
ence to the bound volume of tales from the pen 
of our author, " The Imported Bridegroom and 
Other Stories ;'' although dealing with the same 
subject and delineating the same life, there is 
here a broader outlook, a more comprehensive 
grasp, a finer touch ; the two stories, "A Sweat 
Shop Romance '' and ''A Ghetto Wedding,'' 
though laid in sordid surroundings and showing 
the wretchedness of the Ghetto life with all its 
cramped poverty, yet are invested with the 
transforming artistic spirit that one misses in 
the ^^ realistic '^ tales just referred to; the story 
" Circumstances " evinces real power ; it brings 
out the tragedy of the life of the young Eussian 
Jew of high aspiration and advanced education 
driven from his home and forced to engage in 
the most distasteful occupations in the American 
Ghetto to gain a mere livelihood; the pitiful 
struggle with grinding poverty, the gradual re- 
linquishment of the high ideals, the sacrifice of 
a fine mind to the Moloch of toil for physical 
sustenance, the overwhelming sadness of it all 
are told graphically; full is the New York 
Ghetto of these individual tragedies ; the land of 
promise has become in but too many cases the 
land of disappointment and despair. The longer 
storv that ogives the name to the volume is an excel- 



IX. ^^ CHILDEEN OF THE GHETTO.^^ 201 

lent portrayal of the effect of the culture and 
learning of the larger world upon the Jew of 
Talmudical training and keen dialectical reason- 
ing power; to him who can peer beneath the 
surface there is disclosed here the secret of many 
a Jew^s power to rise above adverse circum- 
stances and make his way in the world. In the 
tales of this volume our author has made a de- 
cided advance; his pictures are more rounded; 
he sets forth well the effect of the American en- 
vironment upon the immigrants, and produces 
some genre pictures which betray true artistic 
capabilities. 

The latest aspirant for] recognition in this 
field is an American Jewess, Martha Wolfen- 
stein ; her book, " Idylls of the Gass,'^ published 
recently, is a collection of short tales, whose 
hero is the little " wonder child,'' Shimmele ; his 
experiences in the home and under the tutelary 
protection of the shrewd and kindly old grand- 
mother, Maryam, are set forth with loving 
warmth and in a delightful manner. Miss 
Wolfenstein has caught the spirit of the finer 
side of the Ghetto life remarkably well; she 
draws the pictures with sympathetic pencil ; she 
loves the life passed there ; but she sees only its 
poetry and romance; she closes her eyes to its 
wretchedness and misery ; the kindly interest, 
the charitable concern, the religiosity, the do- 
mestic constancy, the filial devotion, the hospi- 
tality to the stranger, the respect for learning, 



202 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

the uncomplaining piety, the homely wisdom, the 
keen mother-wit, all these beautiful traits of the 
inhabitants of the Ghetto are delineated with 
skillful strokes; the femininity of the author, 
the gentle-hearted Jewish woman, is apparent 
on every page ; even in the descriptions of the 
horrors of persecution it is this gentler note 
that sounds. All the restrictions of the Ghetto, 
the narrowness of view, the exclusion from the 
larger life, are kept in the background ; after all, 
this is the danger of the Jewish romanticism 
that the writers of the Ghetto stories do so much 
to arouse and foster; in spite of all the poetic 
beauty that the Ghetto novelists weave into the 
life they portray, we may not forget the other 
side; modern Jewish life may seem to lack 
much of the romance of the Ghetto, but for all 
that its freedom outweighs beyond calculation 
all the beauty that the romancer reads into the 
Ghettoism over which he casts fancy's glamour ; 
let the reader beware lest under the witchery of 
his influence we lose the true perspective; the 
Ghetto is in great part a thing of the past, and 
happily so ; whether it be a street, a quarter, or 
a section, it is the synonym for restricted devel- 
opment, and poetize it as much as one will, it 
remains the Ghetto after all. Miss Wolfenstein 
loves her '^ gass ; '^ the heart often clings to a 
cherished possession though the reason declares 
against it ; Shimmele is a splendid creation, and 
JJ!aryam a truly wise woman, like unto whom 



IX. "children of the ghetto." 203 

there were many, mothers in Israel indeed, 
whose keen knowledge of human nature, 
homely wisdom and heart of gold brightened 
all of life. The book contains many deft 
touches ; thus, for example, in speaking of the 
piety and trustful faith of the inhabitants of the 
Ghetto, the author says finely: ^^They were for 
the most part poor and struggling, bent with 
care and labor, stamped with the indellible mark 
of helpless, patient suffering; yet they left their 
beds at dead of night and hurried to the syna- 
gogue to weep penitently over their sins and 
thank the Lord God of Israel for His boundless 
mercies." The dogged persistence of the Jew is 
brought out well in the scene between Shimmele 
and his tormentors. Christian boys of his own 
age ; with all the refinement of cruelty that fre- 
quently marks boys, his chief tormentor has 
forced the little lad to do his bidding in a num- 
ber of instances, and finally he has the wondrous 
inspiration to make the Jew boy cross himself; 
^^^ Cross thyself! make the cross, Jew!^ they 
shouted in chorus. . But the artist had reckoned 
only with Shimmele and not with centuries of 
his ancestors. These now came strangely into 
play. Shimmele^s jaw had become rigid as iron. 
The blood was back in his face and his eyes blazed 
fearlessly into his tormentors', glowing eloquently 
with deep and utter contempt. ' Cross thyself! ' 
he roared again and again, pummeling Shim- 
mele the while in his rage, but the blood of 



204 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

Shimmele's martyred ancestry boiled in his 
veins, and had they then and there hacked 
him to pieces he would not have made the 
sign of the cross.'' One of the best features 
of Jewish life was the spirit of helpfulness, 
notably in cases of need ; charity was bred in 
the bone, and the phrase "the Jewish heart'' 
was coined to express this; the Ghetto had a 
number of institutions for the relief of the self- 
respecting poor, one of which the Burial Society 
affords our author the occasion for a little 
homily which is well worth reproducing ; " I 
would that our modern charity organizations 
might have had a lesson of the Burial Society in 
the Gass. I would that our tender-hearted com- 
mittees who line up the poor like cattle and 
brand them before the face of man — I would 
that they might have studied the methods of 
the Burial Society in the Gass. And our teach- 
ers, those honored makers of the nation, who 
cry without a tremor, 'All children who are too 
poor to buy books please rise ! ' — the little ones 
pale and tremble, and often the pain draws such 
bitter tears — would that they might have learnt 
the tenderness of the Burial Society in the 
Gass." 

"When a death occurs there, whether in the 
house of the rich or the poor, the society sends 
two locked boxes to the bereaved. One con- 
tains the funds of the society, the other is 
empty. The fund must then be transferred 



IX. ''cniLDREN OF THE GHETTO.'' 205 

frcm one box to the other, and in the process 
one may add to it or take from it or leave it 
intact. The boxes are then returned locked, 
and no one knows or can know who has made 
a donation or who has a charity funeral.^^ 

The book ends appropriately with little Shim- 
mele intoning the morning prayer after the 
night of carnage and murder in the Ghetto ; 
the action of the child typifies the faith of the 
Jew of the Ghetto ; despite persecution, despite 
wretchedness, despite the world's hatred and 
contumely, he never lost hope nor ever re- 
linquished his trust in his God, and like the 
"wonder child" of these pages he prayed day 
after day, in sunshine and storm, in happiness 
and gloom, the traditional opening words of 
his daily morning devotions, " The Lord of the 
Universe — He it is who reigned before any be- 
ing was created. He is one and there is none be- 
side. The Lord is my living Redeemer, my 
Rock in the time of affliction. Into His hands 
I commit my spirit. God is with me,' I shall 
not fear.'' 

I have passed in review many imaginary por- 
traits. The fiction whose inspiration is the life 
of the Ghetto has assumed a well-defined place 
in the literary life of the period. It is really 
historical fiction, for even such Ghettos as still 
exist are remnants of the past lingering in the 
present. The fervent hope of all friends of hu- 
manity is that they may ere long vanish from 



206 THE JEW IN ENGLISH FICTION. 

the face of the earth everywhere, and thus the 
sad story of Jewish repression whereof the 
Ghetto has been the symbol may be ended. As 
I stated in the opening lines of this chapter, I 
believe the function of the Ghetto novelist to be 
legitimate, but that which is to be regretted is 
the tendency that has shown itself quite recently 
on the part of some of the representatives of 
this school, to exploit the Ghetto for bizarre 
themes and to publish stories which do not in 
any way reflect the life of the Ghetto as such, 
but seem to be written with the mere purpose 
of producing a sensational story and giving it a 
Ghetto label. This reprehensible proceeding 
cannot be condemned too strongly. Another 
point must also be touched in this connection. 
The Ghetto, the Jewish misery and the Ghetto 
novel have been so much in evidence during the 
past ten years that the fact that they are not all 
of Jewish life and literature is sometimes likely 
to be forgotten. They represent the hand of 
the dead past still resting on the present, but 
during the last century the Jews have been 
making brave and determined efforts to shake 
off this hand. And who will say that they have 
not succeeded in the lands in which legislation 
has removed the barbarities of the centuries? 
The Ghetto is only an incident in Jewish history 
and the Ghetto novel only a small branch of 
Jewish literary activity. 

The Jew of the present day knows that he is 



IX. 



bound by an hundred ties to the past, but he has 
outgrown that past; with freedom has come the 
larger outlook; the unquenchable optimism, the 
homely virtues, the beautiful faith of his fathers 
of the Ghetto, are a precious undying heritage, 
but strange customs and peculiarities that have 
outlived their meaning and usefulness he has 
sloughed. In the Ghetto novel that is true to 
the life he sees a picrure of that past existence 
with all that it implies; he thanks his God 
that the light of freedom is shining brightly in 
many lands, and he prays that where the dark- 
ness' of oppression still broods this light may 
soon penetrate ; in spite of many untoward ap- 
pearances that seem to indicate reaction, he will 
not lose hope that the age of Ghettoism is re- 
ally past, and that where this still lingers it must 
give way to the increasing purpose that runs 
through the ages, for the high hopes of the 
prophets of the human race shall not be disap- 
pointed, and the day shall dawn when hatred and 
oppression shall be no more, and justice, love 
and peace shall rule among men. 



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